
Glass VWl^ 
Book . :S11 ^'^ 2 

PRESErTrED BY 



LETTERS AND PAPERS 



RELATING TO THE 



ALASKA FRONTIER 



LETTERS AND PAPERS 



RELATING TO TH E 



ALASKA FRONTIER 



EDITED BY 
EDWIN SWIFT BALCH 

A. B. (Harvard) 
Member op the Philadelphia Bar 



PHILADELPHIA 

pRBSS OP Allen, Lanb & Scott 

1904 






p. 



V 



o 



INTRODUCTION. 



During the last years of the nineteenth century, 
the Canadians began to claim more and more 
forcibly territory on the coast of Alaska which 
had always been considered as part of the United 
States, until finally there seemed to be danger of 
a clash between American and Canadian miners in 
their search for gold in the region of the Chilkat 
River. In 1899, Great Britain grew very anxious 
for an exact delineation of the boundary in that 
locality, because of the growing troubles in South 
Africa, and the modus vivendi oi October 20, 1899, 
between the United States and Great Britain, 
arranged for a temporary boundary around the 
head of the Lynn Canal. The United States with- 
drew her posts at three points and Canada ad- 
vanced hers correspondingly. It was the United 
States that made all the concessions in this arrange- 
ment and in so doing it acted most generously to- 
ward the British Empire, for on October 11, 1899, 
war had begun in South Africa between the English 
and the Boers, and Britain was in an awkward 
position. My brother, Mr. Thomas Willitig Balch, 
thought the modus vivendi — which yielded tempo- 
rarily to Canada so much of the territory of the 
lisiere to which the United States were justly en- 
titled — so very one-sided, that he began a careful 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

study of the unsettled status of the eastern frontier 
of the Alaska lisiere. A short examination soon 
convinced him that it would be difficult for the 
political men and the newspapers of the United 
States to form, from the then accessible data, a 
fair and adequate opinion, and in order to prevent, 
by any mischance, the giving away to the Cana- 
dians of any American territory or ports on the 
northwest coast above fifty fotir forty, it seemed 
well to my brother to publish in a connected form 
at least the more important evidence, and place 
it in the hands of some of the leading political 
men and newspaper editors of the covmtry. 

In the summer of 1900, a visit to Alaska, and 
the next summer to Europe, resulted in the finding 
of valuable and important evidence. This matter 
was embodied in two papers. One of these, La 
Frontiere Alasko-Canadienne, was printed as the 
initial article for 1902 in La Revue de Droit Inter- 
national et de Legislation Comparee of Brussels, 
and the other. The Alasko-Canadian Frontier was 
published in The Journal of the Franklin Institute 
of Philadelphia for March, 1902. This latter article 
was reprinted and copies were sent in the spring 
of 1902 to all the members of the Fifty- seventh 
Congress, then in session, and from many of those 
gentlemen, both Senators and Congressmen, letters 
of thanks were received. Copies were sent also 
to President Roosevelt by personal friends of his. 
Ten thousand copies were distributed throughout 
the United States. Many of the leading papers of 
the country reviewed and approved of the pamphlet 



INTRODUCTION. VU 

in their editorial column, and the Hon. Charles 
F. Cochran, member of Congress from Missouri, 
introduced the entire article early in 1903 into the 
Congressional Record. 

After additional information was fotmd in the 
summer of 1902 at Saint Petersburg and other 
places, a larger work. The Alaska Frontier, was 
printed in February, 1903, and sent during the 
extra session of the Senate to all the members of 
that body, to ex-Senator Turner; and then to ex- 
President Cleveland, and other gentlemen who had 
held high office under the Government. From a 
large number of these gentlemen letters of acknowl- 
edgment and thanks were received. Both The 
Alasko-Canadian Frontier and The Alaska Frontier 
were sent, at the request of Covmt Cassini, the 
Russian Ambassador, to the Emperor of Russia. 

Among the gentlemen from whom aid was re- 
ceived in collecting information, but who could not 
be named earlier, was the late Hon. Frederick W. 
HoUs, of New York, a member of the United States 
Delegation at the Hague Peace Conference in 1899. 

This collection of letters and papers is printed 
now to show something of the development of 
public opinion on the Alaska frontier question. 
The facts in the case were not accessible to the 
public until the publication of The Alasko-Cana- 
dian Frontier and The Alaska Frontier. But when 
the newspapers and the public men of the United 
States had the facts set squarely before them in 
these books, the numerous articles and the vigor- 
ous editorials in the press showed the tide of public 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

Opinion rising in opposition to any possible giving 
away of United States territory. It was the in- 
fluence of these editorials, and the fact that the 
data were accessible to everyone, which made it 
imperative for the United States Government to 
insist on a Court of Adjudication instead of a Court 
of Arbitration. The Alaska Frontier was in the 
hands of the members of the Court and of the 
counsel on both sides and although the decision 
that the Court handed down was really a diplo- 
matic compromise, in that it yielded Wales and 
Pearse Islands to Canada and brought the frontier 
across the Stikine River too close to tidewater, yet 
that award did not cut the American lisiere in two 
by giving up a port in American territory. The 
United States should always be grateful to Lord 
Alverstone for deciding as he did, but it would 
have been difficult for him not to do so, in view 
of the facts which were clearly set forth before 
him in The Alaska Frontier. 

EDWIN SWIFT BALCH. 
Philadelphia, January loth, 1904. 



CANADA AND ALASKA.^ 

To the Editor of The Nation: 

Sir: — A short time since, the Toronto Globe printed 
a rumor from Ottawa that Canada was about to press 
again her recent claim to a portion of Alaska, and a 
second time to urge the United States to submit this 
demand to the arbitration of foreigners for settlement. 
But there is nothing in this demand to arbitrate. 

Russia and England, after protracted negotiations, 
agreed by treaty, in 1825, upon a line to divide their 
respective North American possessions. This frontier 
was drawn from the Arctic Ocean, along the meridian 
of one hundred and forty-one degrees west longitude 
to Mount Saint Elias, and then was to follow the 
crest of the mountains running parallel to the coast, 
to the head of the Portland Canal, and down that 
sinuosity to the ocean in fifty-four degrees forty min- 
utes north latitude. But if at any point the crest of 
the mountains proved to be at a greater distance than 
ten marine leagues from the shore, then the frontier 
should run parallel to the sinuosities of the coast at 
a distance of ten marine leagues inland, but never 
further than that from the shore. 

This gave to Russia a strip of territory, or lisiere, 
from Mount Saint Elias to the -Portland Canal of suf- 
ficient width to entirely exclude the British Empire 

' The Nation, New York, January 2, and The Evening Post, New 
York, January 4, 1902. 



2 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

from any access to tide water above fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes. And that England was so excluded 
from contact with the sea north of fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes, the English and the Canadian Govern- 
ments recognized, both on their maps and by the acts 
of their officials. This strip of territory, or lisi^re, be- 
came ours when we bought Alaska in 1867 from Rus- 
sia, and we succeeded to all her rights of sovereignty. 
If the claim of Canada — that she is entitled to many 
outlets upon tide water above fifty-fotir degrees forty 
minutes — were submitted to arbitration, and the judges 
decided anything in favor of Canada, it wotdd be a 
clear gain for her. And if the judgment gave Canada 
but a single port, like Pyramid Harbor or Dyea on 
the Lynn Canal, for instance, the present and future 
value to the United States of the Alaskan lisifere would 
be greatly impaired. The evidence in the case is all in 
favor of the United States, and shows that they are 
entitled, by long, uninterrupted occupancy and other 
rights, to an unbroken strip of territory on the main- 
land from Mount Saint Elias down to the Portland 
Canal. 

There is no more reason for this country to agree 
to refer its right to the possession and sovereignty of 
this unbroken Alaskan lisiere to the decision of for- 
eigners, than would be the case if the English Empire 
advanced a demand to sovereignty over the coast of 
the Carolinas or the port of Baltimore, and suggested 
that the claim should be referred to the judgment of 
the subjects of third Powers. Whether the frontier 
should pass over a certain mountain or through a given 
gorge is a proper subject for settlement by a mutual 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 3 

survey. But by no possibility has Canada any right 
to territory touching tide water above fifty-four de- 
grees forty minutes. The United States should not 
consent to submit such a proposition to arbitration. 

T. W. BALCH. 
Philadelphia, December 27th, 1901. 



CANADA AND ALASKA.' 

To the Editor of The Nation: 

Sir:— Your correspondent, T. W. Balch, states that 
there is nothing to arbitrate in the dispute between 
Canada and the United States over the boundary be- 
tween Alaska and our Northwest Territories. Whether 
this is so may be learned from the notes exchanged 
between the United Kingdom and the United States 
upon the subject up to and including those of Oc- 
tober 20, 1899, fixing a provisional boundary. Here 
it will be found that the problem at issue involves 
the interpretation of a treaty made between England 
and Russia in 1825, whose terms are ambiguous, re- 
quiring for their true construction a consideration of 
the state of geographical knowledge at the time the 
document was signed, a reference to the correspond- 
ence which led up to it, and the application of well- 
known principles of international law. 

Article III. of the treaty provided that, from a cer- 
tain point at 56 degrees north latitude, "the line of 
demarcation shall follow the crest of the moimtains 

^The Nation, New York, January i6, and Tlte Evening Post, Janu- 
ary 18. 



4 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

situated parallel to the coast, as far as its point of 
intersection with the 141st degree of west longitude." 
The whole region is highly motmtainous, and the ques- 
tion arises, What are the mountains whose crest is to 
be followed? 

Article IV., section 2, provides that where the cr-est 
of the mountains is more than ten miles from the 
shore, the line shall be drawn parallel to the sinuosi- 
ties of the coast, but never to be more than ten ma- 
rine leagues from it. Upon this ground the United 
States raises the contention that the boundary is in- 
tended to be throughout not less than thirty miles 
from the ocean, whereas the language of the docu- 
ment is "not more than." 

Further, the question arises. What is the "coast" 
spoken of? In the negotiations which preceded the 
treaty of 1825, the Russian plenipotentiaries distin- 
guished between the "coast" of the main ocean and 
the shores of inlets. Canada takes her stand upon the 
sense in which the term was used by those who drew 
up the treaty. Is that position so clearly wrong that 
it is not even open to argument? 

Your correspondent says: "The evidence in the case 
is all in favor of the United States, and shows that 
they are entitled, by long, uninterrupted occupancy 
and other rights, to an unbroken strip of territory on 
the mainland from Mount Saint Elias down to the 
Portland Canal." Why, then, is the United States un- 
willing to submit its claims to an impartial tribunal? 

Canada sought to have this frontier ascertained in 
1872, shortly after the purchase of Alaska by the 
United States, but withovit success, although Hamil- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 5 

ton Fish, the Secretary of State, was favorable. In 
1892 an international survey commission was appointed 
to ascertain facts and data, and the commission made 
a joint report on December 31, 1895, accompanied 
with elaborate maps and photographic views. Up to 
this time Vancouver's maps, made in 1792, were the 
standard and only original authority, except that the 
shores of the Lynn Canal had been surveyed in 1881. 
In 1898-99 the British delegates to the International 
Commission, including Lord Herschell, offered certain 
terms to the United States, and, in the event of these 
not being acceptable, they expressed their willingness 
to refer the whole question to arbitration on the lines 
of the Venezuela boundary treaty. That treaty pro- 
vided that adverse holding for fifty years should make 
a good title, and also that such effect should be given 
to occupation for less than fifty years as reason, jus- 
tice, the principles of international law, and the equi- 
ties of the case required. The United States Commis- 
sioners refused both offers, making, however, a coun- 
ter-proposal that, in the event of their consenting to 
arbitration, it should be provided beforehand that the 
settlements on tidewater made on the authority of the 
United States should continue to be American terri- 
tory, even though they might prove to be on the 
British side of the line. In other words, they de- 
manded that Canada should yield her rights as a pre- 
hminary condition to having those rights determined. 
The claims put forward by Canada are made in 
good faith, and based upon grounds which, if dis- 
putable, are none the less solid. The issue is pre- 
cisely of the kind to which arbitration is suitable. 



O LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Yet the United States, which insisted upon arbitra- 
tion in the Venezuela boundary difficulty, refuses it 
here, acts as judge and advocate in its own cause, 
and decides that there is "nothing to arbitrate." 

R. W. SHANNON. 
Ottawa, Canada, January ii, 1902. 



FACTS ABOUT THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY.' 

To the Editor of The Nation: 

Sir: — As Mr. Balch, in common with almost all the 
writers and speakers in this country who touch upon 
the matter, has much befogged the real points at is- 
sue, I earnestly hope that you will permit me, through 
your columns, to give a brief statement of the facts 
upon which Canada bases her claim. They are as fol- 
lows: 

(i.) That the strait now called Portland Channel, 
through which the United States have run their line 
of demarcation, is not, and cannot be, the Portland 
Channel referred to in the Anglo-Russian Convention 
of 1825, upon which the title of the United States to 
their Alaskan territory is founded; and that, in con- 
sequence of this erroneous assumption, Canada has 
been deprived of a large extent of territory rightfully 
belonging to her. 

(2.) That, in running their line of demarcation ten 
marine leagues from the shores of every inlet that 
debouches from the seacoast, instead of from the sea- 
coast itself, the United States have violated the true 

^The Nation, January 23, The Evening Post, January 27, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. ^ 

intent of the treaty; these inlets being, in fact, but 
narrow fjords, only a few miles in width at their 
greatest extension, and in no sense being a part of 
the coast proper. 

In support of the first contention, I would refer to 
the words of the treaty itself. In laying down the line 
of demarcation, it says: 

"A partir du point le plus meridional de I'ile dite 
Prince of Wales, lequel point se trouve sous le paral- 
l^le du 54me degre 40 minutes de latitude nord, et 
entre le i3ime et le i33me degre de longitude ouest, 
la dite ligne remontera au nord le long de la passe 
dite Portland Channel, jusqu'au point de la terre ferme 
ou elle atteint de 56me degr6 de latitude nord; de ce 
dernier point la ligne de demarcation suivra la crSte 
des montagnes situees parallel^ment k la cote, jusqu'au 
point d'intersection du i4ime degr6 de longitude ouest, 
etc." 

Now I affirm that no unprejudiced person who reads 
the above and afterwards consults a map of the ter- 
ritory involved, can say that they furnish sufficient 
evidence to establish the claim of the United States. 

By the terms of the treaty, the line of demarcation 
is to begin at the southernmost point of the Prince 
of Wales Island; from that point it is to ascend to 
the north along a strait called Portland Channel until 
it reaches a point on the mainland where it attains 
the 56th degree of north latitude. Does the line as 
laid down by the United States do this? Not by any 
manner of means! Instead of ascending to the north 
as the treaty says it shall do, it actually descends, 
passing along a line o little south of east, for a dis- 



8 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

tance of one hundred and thirty miles! Then, and then 
only, it begins to meander northward. 

So far, it must be clear to the unprejudiced inves- 
tigator that there is something wrong either with the 
treaty or with the American interpretation thereof. 
Let us see, then, what other interpretation is possible 
and reasonable. 

Turn again to the map, and place one end of a 
ruler upon the southernmost point of Prince of Wales 
Island, which, as we have seen, is the place where 
the line of demarcation begins, the other end pointing 
northward. It will be seen that it follows very nearly 
the course of the eastern arm of a channel marked 
upon some maps as "Clarence Strait." This channel 
actually terminates at the prescribed latitude of 56 
degrees north, which the one now called Portland does 
not. I say it will be found that the ruler very nearly 
follows the course of this channel; it does not quite, 
for it cuts off some outlying edges of the island. It 
is this fact which furnishes one of the strongest proofs 
of the correctness of Canada's claim. Taken in con- 
nection with a clause of the treaty which provides 
"que rile dite Prince of Wales appartiendra toute en- 
ti^re h la Russie," it shows almost conclusively that 
this strait, and not the one now so designated, was 
referred to in the treaty by the name of " Portland 
Channel." 

The only possible explanation of this clause is that 
the line of demarcation as laid down in the treaty, if 
strictly followed, would leave some part of the island 
outside of the territory assigned to Russia, and there- 
fore this provision was inserted in order that it might 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 9 

retain the whole. This explanation accords with the 
hypothesis that the line of demarcation was intended 
to pass through the strait now called "Clarence," and 
not the one now called "Portland," for if the line ran 
through the latter, there would be no need of a spe- 
cial clause to preserve the whole island to Russia, for 
every part of it would be at least a hundred miles 
inside the territory assigned to that country. 

With regard to the second contention on behalf of 
Canada, the question turns upon the true meaning of 
the word "sinuosities" which occurs in the treaty. 
Does it mean, as is claimed it does by Canada, that 
the line shall follow the coast proper, or that it shall 
follow up every narrow inlet, one of which at least 
runs into the mainland for over a hundred miles, and 
the upper part of which no more resembles the sea- 
coast, than do the Palisades of the Hudson? This sec- 
ond contention is also strengthened by a clause in 
the treaty which grants to Great Britain the right to 
"free navigation" of all these inlets. Of what use 
would this be did she not own their upper reaches? 

As to the first, it is not at all unlikely that the 
name Portland Channel was anciently applied to a dif- 
ferent strait from the one now known by that name. 
A similar confusion occurred many years ago when, in 
an attempt to delineate the boimdary line between 
the United States and British possessions, the ques- 
tion arose as to what was the stream referred to in 
the treaty by the name of St. Croix River. The dis- 
pute was settled to the satisfaction of both parties. 

Mr. Balch claims, as other writers and speakers 
have done, that the United States is "entitled by 



lO LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

long uninterrupted occupancy to an unbroken strip of 
territory on the mainland, etc." If my memory serves 
me aright, a similar claim was set up on behalf of 
Great Britain in the Venezuelan matter, which claim 
was received with indignant remonstrance in this coun- 
try as being an instance of British arrogance. Amer- 
ica of course is incapable of arrogance. In any case 
this plea is beside the question, for there happens to 
be a clause in the treaty made to fit this possibility, 
which clause expressly denies prescriptive rights to 
either party. 

I am, Mr. Editor, respectfully yours, 

ARTHUR JOHNSTON. 
Santa Ana, Cal., January 8, 1902, 



THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY.* 

To the Editor of The Nation: 

Sir: — Is it too much to ask that gentlemen who 
propose to instruct the public as to the meaning and 
scope of an international treaty shall first inform them- 
selves as to the history and object of that treaty, and 
shall quote it without omitting essential qualifying 
clauses? This question is suggested by certain recent 
correspondence in your columns, especially a letter 
signed Arthur Johnston in the issue of January 23. 
The history of the treaty of St. Petersburg made in 
1825 has been fully set forth by the writer in 1889; 
and more recently, from a study of the unpublished 
documents, the Hon. John W. Foster has given an 

*The Nation, January 30, and The Evening Post, February i, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. II 

account of the negotiations which led up to it, the 
object insisted upon by Russia and finally conceded 
by Great Britain, and other details. This statement 
has not been and cannot successfully be attacked on 
the score of accuracy and fairness. To this inquirers 
should be referred, as neither your space nor my time 
permits of an extended restatement here. 

The so-called "claims of Canada" arose from the 
fact that the exclusion of Great Britain from the sea 
between Skagway and Port Simpson, which was the 
effect of the treaty, has become inconvenient to Can- 
ada now that the hinterland of the Northwest Terri- 
tory is being developed. This led some ill-informed 
individuals to propose an interpretation of the treaty, 
aided by some obscurity in its terms, which interpre- 
tation, to obtain plausibility, requires (i) the total 
ignoring of the history of the treaty, written and car- 
tographic, and of the mutual action of the parties to 
it after it had been signed; (2) that, when the treaty 
says Portland Channel, it must be assumed not to 
mean Portland Channel; (3) that when the treaty pur- 
ports to convey a continuous strip of coast {lisiere 
de cote) it must be assumed to mean broken patches 
of coast interrupted by foreign territory; (4) that 
when the treaty directs that a line shall follow the 
sinuosities of the coast {paralUle aux siniwsites de la 
cote) it shall be interpreted as meaning that the Hne 
shall be drawn disregarding these sinuosities. 
• What we may ask, is the value of any treaty if it 
be subject to such interpretations? I believe I am 
correct in stating that the British Government has 
never officially adopted these propositions, though col- 



12 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

onial politicians have used them for their own pur- 
poses; and, by constant reiteration, it is probable that 
many well-meaning but ill-informed persons may finally 
come to believe, in defiance of the real facts, that 
there is something reasonable and even equitable in 
these hypothetic interpretations. 

In addition to hypotheses, Mr. Johnston is guilty of 
direct error in several instances when it would be in- 
ferred he had the treaty before him. He says that a 
clause in the treaty "grants to Great Britain the right 
to 'free navigation' of all these inlets" and asks, "Of 
what use would this be did she not own their upper 
reaches?" The truth is that the treaty grants this 
privilege for a term of ten years. If she "owned the 
upper reaches" of the inlets, she could hardly have 
been excluded from them at any time. With regard 
to the name Portland Channel, or inlet, its history is 
short, definite, and precise, and the contrary assump- 
tion is utterly baseless. Its location and character 
were settled by Vancouver, who first mapped it, and 
have never been in doubt since. Mr. Johnston also 
states that there is a clause in the treaty "which ex- 
pressly denies prescriptive rights to either party." This 
is untrue. The only clause which gives even a color 
of plausibility to such a statement is one in which 
the contracting parties agree not to make settlements 
in each other's territory. In pursuance of this, Rus- 
sia made a settlement on one of the Gravina islands 
within a few miles of Portland Inlet and the British 
post of Fort Simpson, and her right to do so was never 
questioned. When the Hudson Bay Company tried to 
erect a post surreptitiously on Wrangell Island, they 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 1 3 

were ignominiously driven away by Russian naval 
forces. 

But, we are asked, why are you not willing to ar- 
bitrate this question if the case is so clear? In the 
first place, we may well wait until these preposterous 
hypotheses are officially adopted by Great Britain be- 
fore we consider arbitration as in question at all. 
Secondly, arbitration, unfortunately for the world's 
peace, has not of late upheld the ideal character with 
which it was formerly endowed. The result of the 
Delagoa Bay arbitration has been fitly described as 
an international scandal. The United States, secure 
in the possession of her rights, may well wait until 
they are attacked in good faith by more redoubtable 

adversaries than colonial Jingoes. 

WM. H. DALL. 
Washington, January 28, 1902. 



CANADA AND ALASKA.' 

To the Editor of The Nation: 

Sir: — ^The present contention of Canada about the 
Alaskan frontier, which she brought up at the Quebec 
Conference in 1898, is that she is entitled to many 
outlets upon tide-water above fifty-four degrees forty 
minutes north latitude; and the possession of even 
only one such outlet on the Lynn Canal would serve 
her purposes admirably well. The United States, on 
the other hand, as Russia before them, have always 
maintained that (by Articles III. and IV. of the Anglo- 
Muscovite Treaty of 1825), no matter whether the 

"The Nation, February 6, and The Evening Post, February 7, 1902. 



14 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

frontier pass over a certain mountain top or through 
a given gorge, yet it is at all points far enough in- 
land to entirely cut off the British empire from all 
contact with tidewater above the Portland Canal, which 
debouches into the ocean at fifty-four degrees forty 
minutes. And this view of the United States has 
been supported in the past and not so long ago either, 
by both the British and the Canadian Governments. 

In the early course of the negotiations between 
Russia and England in the years 1823 and 1824, Sir 
Charles Bagot fought strenuously to keep open for 
Britain an outlet upon tide-water as far up above 
fifty-four degrees forty minutes as possible. But to 
all his propositions, including his last one that the 
frontier should pass from the southern extremity of 
Prince of Wales Island up through Clarence Straits, 
which wash the eastern shore of Prince of Wales Is- 
land, the Russians would not agree. And finally Eng- 
land, represented by Stratford Canning, yielded the 
point and agreed on the Portland Canal as a botmd- 
ary. As to what sinuosity Count Nesselrode, M. de 
Poletica, and Stratford Canning meant by the Port- 
land Canal, when they negotiated and concluded the 
treaty of 1825, may be seen by looking at Vancou- 
ver's chart, upon which is marked clearly " Portland 
Canal." And the map of the "Northwestern Part of 
the Dominion of Canada," published by the Surveyor- 
General at Ottawa, in 1898, agrees with Vancouver and 
the United States as to where is the "Portland Canal." 

In 1872 Sir Edward Thornton, acting on his in- 
structions from the British Foreign Office, which was 
serving as the intermediary for the Government of 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 1$ 

Canada, proposed to Secretary Hamilton Fish the ad- 
visability of having a survey made of the territory 
through which the boundary ran, so that the frontier 
could be located exactly, and Mr. Fish thought well 
of the idea and said that he would urge Congress to 
provide funds for such a survey. At that time no 
mention was made of Canada's present claim, that 
she is entitled to the upper part of many or all of 
the fiords or sinuosities that cut into the mainland 
above fifty-four degrees forty minutes. On the con- 
trary, the Surveyor-General of Canada, J. S. Dennis, 
in a written commtmication in 1874 to the Minister 
of the Interior of the Dominion, gave his opinion that 
it would be sufficient at that time to determine ex- 
actly the points at which the frontier crosses the 
"Rivers Skoot, Stakeen, Taku, Isilcat, and Chilkaht." 
He added further: "The United States surveys of the 
coast could be advantageously used to locate the coast 
line in deciding the mouths of the rivers in question, 
as points from whence the necessary triangulation sur- 
veys should commence in order to determine the ten ma- 
rine leagues back." In addition, a United States Coast 
Survey map, certified to "January 16, 1878," by Sur- 
veyor-General Dennis, was published in connection with 
this letter, with the bovmdary line crossing the Skoot, 
Stickine, and Taku Rivers, ten leagues back from the 
coast. 

In 1877 the Canadian Government, through the in- 
termedium of the British Foreign Office, formally rec- 
ognized that the lisi^re of Alaska shut off Canadian 
territory from access to salt water. The previous year 
while taking a prisoner named Peter Martin, who was 



l6 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

condemned in the Cassiar District of British Columbia, 
for some act committed in Canadian territory, from 
the place where he was convicted to the place where 
he was to be imprisoned, Canadian constables crossed 
the Stickine River. They encamped with Martin at a 
point some thirteen miles up the river from its mouth. 
There Martin attempted unsuccessfully to escape, and 
made an assault on an officer. Upon his arrival at 
Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, he was tried 
and convicted for his attempted escape and attack 
upon the constable; and the court sentenced him. Our 
Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, protested vigor- 
ously against this infringement of the territorial sov- 
ereignty of the United States in the Territory of 
Alaska. After an investigation into the facts of the 
case, the Dominion Government acknowledged the 
justness of Secretary Fish's protest by "setting Peter 
Martin at liberty without further delay;" and thus 
recognized that the Canadian constables who had Mar- 
tin in their charge when they encamped on the Stick- 
ine thirteen miles up from the mouth of the river, 
were on United States soil, and so that Canada's jur- 
isdiction in that region did not extend to tide-water. 
A striking truth of what the best ofificial geograph- 
ers of the British Government thought was the true 
boundary, is "Admiralty Chart No. 787" of the British 
Admiralty, that gives the northwest coast of America 
from "Cape Corrientes, Mexico, to Kadiak Island." 
This was prepared in 1876 by F. J. Evans, R. N., 
published in 1877, and corrected up to April, 1898, 
only a few months before the opening of the Quebec 
Conference. On this chart of the British Admiralty, 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 1/ 

the frontier of the United States descends the one 
hundred and forty-first degree of longitude west from 
Greenwich, and then, advancing on the Continent, but 
passing aroiind the sinuosities of the coast so as to 
give a continuous lisiere of territory cutting off the 
Dominion of Canada from all contact with any of the 
fiords or sinuosities that bulge into the continent be- 
tween Mount Saint Elias and the Portland Canal, the 
frontier is drawn to the head of the Portland Canal 
at about fifty-six degrees, and then down that sinu- 
osity, striking Dixon's Entrance at fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes. Thus the British Admiralty itself up- 
holds the territorial claims held and maintained by both 
the Russian and the United States Governments. 

It is one thing to ask the United States to agree, 
as Mr. Fish was willing to do in 1872, to have a 
joint survey to examine the country in the interior in 
order to locate exactly where the frontier runs. But 
it is quite another thing to ask the United States to 
submit to arbitration their right to all the sinuosities 
of the coast in their entirety above fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes, and the unbroken strip of territory 
round these sinuosities, which Great Britain recognized, 
from 1825 to 1867, as a part of Russia, and, since 
then, until recently, as a part of the United States. 
The more the subject is examined, the more evident 
does it become that there is nothing in the proposition 
of Canada and England which the United States should 

refer to arbitration. 

T. W. BALCH. 

Philadelphia, January 27, 1902. 

(The argument must close here.^ED. Nation.) 



I 8 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Washington, D. C, March 17, 1902. 
T. W. Batch, Esq., Philadelphia: 

Dear Sir: — I have received your book, "The Alasko- 
Canadian Frontier," and read it with much interest. 
I was especially attracted to your new maps. 

I have not given the boundary qtiestion any atten- 
tion since I read my paper before the Geographic So- 
ciety and the details have largely passed out of my 
mind. I think there is some reference to the "Dryad" 
in one of H. H. Bancroft's books; also in some of the 
manuscript papers belonging to the Joint High Com- 
mission, but to these I do not have ready access. 

Yours truly, 

JOHN W. FOSTER. 



New York, March 19th, 1902. 
Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa.: 

My Dear Sir:— I am very greatly obliged to you 
for the copy of your interesting monograph on the 
Alasko-Canadian Frontier. It seems to me that your 
argument is absolutely imanswerable. * * * ]\jo 
cause has greater reason to pray to be delivered from 
its friends than that of international arbitration. It 
received its severest blow in the Behring Sea contro- 
versy and it would be fatally discredited if applied 
to such a question as this about the frontier. 

I have good reason to believe that the statesmen 
of Great Britain imderstand this perfectly well but 
they are in great terror on account of the Canadian 
politicians. Under these circumstances there is noth- 
ing for this country to do but to stand firm and 
your advice in this direction is invaluable. 

H: % ^ :f: % ^ Nc 

Very faithfully yours, 

FREDERICK W. ROLLS. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. I9 

ALASKAN BOUNDARY.^ 



REASONS WHY UNITED STATES MUST SUBMIT TO 
ARBITRATION. 



Concessions Made in Past Negotiations Preclude This Gov- 
ernment Now From Rigid Attitude. 



To the Editor of The Evening Star: 

A printed paper on "The Alasko-Canadian Fron- 
tier" by Thomas Willing Balch, of Philadelphia, is 
today circulated in the official and legislative circles 
of Washington by its author. Mr. Balch has summed 
up the claim of the United States admirably. He 
has also added several new and valuable items of in- 
formation which have hitherto not been clearly and 
forcibly brought forward in behalf of our case by any 
one since the dispute first arose over this question in 
1877 between Great Britain and ourselves. 

But Mr. Balch has closed this publication of March, 
1902, above cited, with these words: "The United 
States should never consent to refer such a proposi- 
tion (the delimitation of the Alasko-Canadian boun- 
dary) to arbitration." Mr. Balch is not acquainted 
with certain mistakes made by high ofificials of our 
government in 1892, and again in 1897, over this 
subject. If he was, he would not have made use of 
the words quoted; he would have understood their 
futility and have left them unsaid. 

What have our high officials done in the premises? 

^The Star, Washington, D. C, March 26, 1902. 



20 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

For the information of Mr. Balch, and the officials 
and legislators in especial who are getting his book, 
and the public generally, note the following facts: 

On the 26th of August, 1892, the then Secretary 
of State John W. Foster, and the British minister. 
Sir Julian Pauncefote, entered into a "convention be- 
tween the United States of America and the united 
kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for the delimi- 
tation of the boundary line between the United States 
and the Dominion of Canada, dividing Alaska from 
British Columbia. ' ' 

The terms of this convention created a joint com- 
mission to do that work— one commissioner for us 
and one for Canada. They were directed to examine 
into and agree upon a report on or before the ex- 
piration of two years from the date of their appoint- 
ment. They failed to agree and their time was ex- 
tended to the last day of 1895. Then they came to 
an agreement in so far as the location of the 141st 
meridian of west longitude was concerned, but they 
utterly failed to agree upon the line of the "thirty- 
mile strip," and where only the shadowy ground for 
dispute has arisen or could arise. 

The agreement of this commission as to the final 
location of the 141st meridian where it bisects our 
"thirty-mile strip," on the summit of Mt. St. Elias, 
was, for our case, a mischievous one; and when the 
light was turned on to it, March 12, 1897, the Senate 
refused to ratify the treaty confirming it, which was 
sent in by Richard Olney, January 30, 1897; and it 
is still hung up in the senate committee of foreign 
relations. This mischievous little boundary treaty con- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 21 

tained what was advertised at Ottawa as an "impor- 
tant surrender to the United States of what is here 
held to be indisputably Canadian territory." The mo- 
ment I saw this statement in a Canadian official press 
dispatch, March 7, 1897, I knew instinctively that we 
were being plucked. I managed to get a copy of the 
treaty, and then exposed its aim to Senator Foraker, 
just in time, for it would have been ratified the next 
day had he not stopped it. 

In the light of the foregoing outlines of a most un- 
fortunate mistake in the State Department, whereby 
we admitted to Canada, August 26, 1892, that we 
ourselves did not know exactly where our own Alas- 
kan border was defined, and then were willing, Janu- 
ary 30, 1897, to shift it here or there as a joint com- 
mission might agree — is it not plain that the Cana- 
dians in this matter have secured the same advantage 
which they took in 1854-1871 over our claim to San 
Juan Island, Puget sotmd? Indeed, they have se- 
cured more, in the pending contention, because dur- 
ing the entire period of the San Juan dispute we 
never admitted the shadow of a doubt as to the ex- 
act line of our claim! 

Let me recite a few salient points, briefly, of this 
San Juan difficulty, which we said, for fifteen long 
years, we never would submit to arbitration. Yet, 
nevertheless, on May 8, 187 1, we entered into a con- 
vention here, at Washington, which submitted the 
controversy to the result of arbitration. Curiously 
enough, this San Juan dispute was strangely similar 
in claim of indefinite treaty terms of boundary limi- 
tation to the pending Alaskan boundary question. 



22 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

The terms of the treaty of Washington, June 15, 
1846, were indefinite with especial regard to the line 
of demarcation between Vancouver Island and Wash- 
ington territory for the extension of the 49th parallel 
from Point Roberts. They were made in the follow- 
ing vague words: From Point Roberts the boimdary 
went "to the middle of the channel which separates 
Vancouver Island from the continent, and thence 
southerly through the middle of said channel and of 
Inca straits to the Pacific ocean." 

The first clash over this did not spring up tmtil 
1854. Then some sheep were taken across from Vic- 
toria to San Juan Island by the H. B. Co.'s people. 
The United States collector of customs of Washing- 
ton territory levied a duty upon them. The Cana- 
dians objected, and put up an armed resistance; Brit- 
ish and American troops were called out by both par- 
ties to the contest; the British established an armed 
camp on the north end of the island; hoisted their 
colors, beat their drums, and we did likewise on the 
south end of the same island — the two camps were 
not more than five miles apart, and in plain sight of 
each other. An indiscreet officer at any time between 
1 854-1 87 1 could have plvmged both nations into war! 
I saw these camps in 1865-67, and I can testify to 
the intense, bitter feeling that ran high among our 
own people, and among theirs; it was far more in- 
tense than the feeling at Skagway is at this hour. 

The British insisted that the "channel" referred to 
in the treaty of 1846 was "Rosario straits;" the 
Americans insisted that this "channel" was the "Ca- 
nal de Hors." After fifteen years of heated argument 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 23 

and reiterated declaration on both sides that it would 
never be submitted to arbitration — -that they would 
and we would fight first — we sent the question to a 
court of arbitration, with the German emperor as the 
arbitrator, as above stated. He decided, October 8, 
1872, in our favor, and the "fighting" troops of Canada 
evacuated the island November 22, following. 

Sooner or later this Alaskan botmdary question must 
be settled ; no titles to undeveloped land or mining 
claims over which there is a shadow of doubt can 
command capital for their exploration and working; 
and since we have by mistaken steps of our own 
official agents in 1892 and 1897 admitted the Cana- 
dian contention of doubt as to the fixed line of our 
possessions and we are today resting on a modus Vi- 
vendi over the line on the pass above Skagway, how 
are we going to undo what we have inherited from 
1892? 

The conclusion in any judicial mind is that we will 
follow the course and precedent of the San Juan dis- 
pute; we have a much better case than we had then; 
the record of Russian ownership of the "thirty-mile 
strip" is cemented by the British record of leasing it, 
for a limited period (in 1 839-1 856), as Russian terri- 
tory; and this act .of leasing was approved by a se- 
lect committee of the British parliament, during 1857, 
after examining into its terms, and by the Russian 
government in 1 854-' 56. 

We can win our Alaskan claim easily before any 
tribimal of our peers if we put it into the hands of 
intelligent and capable agents. 

• HENRY W. ELLIOTT. 



24 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

THE ALASKO-CANADIAN FRONTIER.' 

The Ledger is in receipt of a monograph on "The 
Alasko-Canadian Frontier," by Thomas Willing Balch, 
Esq., of this city, in which the claim of the United 
States, that it is entitled to a strip of territory on 
the Alaskan mainland, "from the Portland Canal, in 
the south, up to Mount Saint EUas, in the north, so 
as to cut off absolutely the British possessions from 
access to the sea above the point of fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes," is presented, we think, with conclusive 
force. The paper was read originally at the annual 
meeting of the Franklin Institute, January 15, 1902 
It buttresses the American contention with an array 
of proofs which it is confidently believed would sway 
the judgment of any impartial judicial tribimal. Mr. 
Balch finds the American case to be so unassailable 
that Canada has no ground for the demand that the 
boimdary question shall be submitted to arbitration. 

"Whether the frontier shall pass over a certain 
moiintain top or through a given gorge is a proper 
subject for settlement by a mutual survey. But by no 
possibility has Canada any right to territory touching 
tidewater above fifty-four degrees forty minutes. The 
United States should never consent to refer such a 
proposition to arbitration." 

Mr. Balch notes that for more than fifty years the 
British Empire did not challenge the interpretation 
placed upon the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825 by 
Russia, and later by the United States, that Russia, 
and, after the cession of Alaska in 1867, the United 

' Editorial from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, April 4, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 25 

States, became entitled to a strip of mainland, follow- 
ing the indentations or sinuosities of the coast, from 
the Portland channel northward to Mount Saint Elias, 
"so as to cut off absolutely the British possessions 
from access to the sea above the point of fifty-four 
degrees forty minutes." 

This was the status until August, 1898, when Eng- 
land claimed, at the Quebec Conference, that the An- 
glo-Russian treaty of 1825 gave to Canada the upper 
portion of nearly all the estuaries between Portland 
Canal and Mount Saint Elias. The British claim made 
in 1898 was that the Alaskan boundary from the top 
of Portland Canal should nm directly to the coast, 
"and then along the mountains on the mainland near- 
est the shore and across all sinuosities of the sea that 
advance into the continent up to Mount Saint Elias." 

Mr. Balch traces the important negotiations leading 
up to the signing of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825. 
He shows that England wished to obtain from Russia 
a disclaimer of the ukase of 182 1, that Bering Sea and 
certain portions of the Pacific were to be held as Rus- 
sian waters exclusively. Russia would not yield until 
the boundary line was so fixed as to give Russia the 
unbroken strip along the coast from Portland Canal to 
Mount Saint Elias, "and on this last point England, 
after a long and stubborn resistance, finally yielded." 

With respect to the eastern boundary of this strip 
Mr. Balch recalls that England insisted that, should 
the mountain summits prove to be at any point more 
than ten marine leagues from the shore, "the line of 
demarcation should be drawn parallel to the sinu- 
osities of the shore at a distance of ten marine 



26 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

leagues. This ten league limit to the eastward was 
inserted * * * to guard England against a pos- 
sibility of having her territory pushed back to the 
eastward a hundred miles or more from the sea in 
case the crest of the mountains was found in reality 
to lie far back from the coast instead of close to it, 
as was then supposed." 

The American contention, Mr. Raich says, is sup- 
ported by the maps of "the best cartographers in the 
world, including those of England and Canada." Fac 
similes of many of these rare maps are presented in 
the volume to illustrate the text. He shows, further- 
more, that the Canadian and English Govenmients by 
certain acts have recognized the title of the United 
States to the strip heretofore described, shutting off 
Canada from the sinuosities of the coast. In 1876 
the Canadian authorities liberated a prisoner convicted 
in the Canadian courts for an offence committed at a 
place within the Alaskan strip claimed by the United 
States. The prisoner was released on the ground that 
the Canadian courts had no jurisdiction over this place. 

Mr. Balch deserves great credit for his painstaking 
and successful effort to clarify a subject of very great 
international importance. His monograph contains a 
wealth of material for the proper imderstanding of 
the British-American boundary dispute. It is, in fact, 
an exhaustive brief of the American case. The re- 
ported recent removal by a Canadian official of one 
or more of the boundary monuments placed by Rus- 
sia to mark the line of Alaska has suddenly revived 
interest in the dispute so thoroughly illuminated by 
Mr. Balch. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 27 

New York, April 4th, 1902. 

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa. 

My Dear Sir: — With reference to the map to which 
you refer, I am free to say that I know nothing of 
it but I was informed that the Canadian Government 
sent to Paris a map in 1878, for which they received 
a gold medal, as being the most accurate and beauti- 
ful specimen of governmental scientific map making 
on exhibition. The original of this map was in the 
library at Ottawa for some years and I have seen it 
myself. I am told that immediately after the discov- 
ery of gold in the Klondike it disappeared but I have 

also been informed that Mr. has a copy in 

his library. 

I asked Mr. Joseph Chamberlain about this map in 
England a year ago and he didn't deny its existence 
nor did he minimize its importance. In fact it would 
seem to be almost conclusive against the Canadian 
case. 

At the same time, I am bound to say that my in- 
formation came entirely through second hands and 
had better not be used in any public argument with- 
out careful verification; but, of course, I would rather 
not be quoted in the matter. 

If I can be of service to you in any way I shall 
be delighted, for it seems to me that in the interest 
of good relations between Great Britain and the United 
States, no false hopes should be encouraged in the 
direction of arbitration on this question. 

I am, Sir, with great respect. 

Very faithfully yours, 

FREDERICK W. HOLLS. 



28 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

AFRAID TO ARBITRATE.' 

Thomas Willing Balch, a Philadelphia lawyer, has 
published a treatise on "The Alasko-Canadian Fron- 
tier," calculated to show by means of maps, charts, 
quotations from treaties, and incidents gathered from 
history and tradition, that Canada's claims are un- 
soimd, cannot be established, and that therefore arbi- 
tration should not be consented to by the United 
States. 

The Cleveland Plain-Dealer is so impressed by the 
arguments and pictures in Mr. Balch's pamphlet, that 
it sees no necessity for arbitration. 

If the evidence on this question is entirely against 
Canada, why should the United States hesitate to see 
the whole matter referred to an unbiased tribunal? 
If their case is so strong, the Canadian contention 
can be swept aside and disposed of forever. While 
Philadelphia lawyers are writing pamphlets on one 
side of this question, Canadian lawyers can write very 
convincingly to Canadian readers on the other side 
of it. 

In regard to arbitration, the position taken by 
Uncle Sam is characteristically unfair. If his title to 
the disputed territory is superior to ours, he can 
prove it. But he will not. He will arbitrate in a 
case where he has something to gain, but where he 
may lose he will not arbitrate. "There is nothing to 

'Editorial from T/te Star, Toronto, Canada, April loth, 1902. 

In a vigorous editorial entitled " The Alaskan Boundary Dispute," 
in Tlie World, of Toronto, Canada, on April 8, 1902, reference was 
made to TIte Alasko-Canadian Frontier. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 29 

arbitrate," he says, where there is nothing for him to 
gain. He believes in courts of justice to which he 
can go as plaintiff, but he repudiates them when he 
is called on to appear as defendant. 



THE GAME OF GRAB.' 

The Alasko-Canadian frontier dispute is not a par- 
ticularly inviting subject to the people generally be- 
cause there is more or less obscurity about it. To 
the average man it possesses only a remote interest 
for the simple reason that he does not understand the 
points involved. He knows that there is a strip of 
land about thirty miles wide and five himdred miles 
long, containing some fifteen htmdred square miles of 
territory, which England has recently claimed as a part 
of Canada. He knows that Secretary Hay has "pro- 
visionally" agreed to the British boundary line, pending 
a settlement of the dispute. The facts of the case, how- 
ever, have never been clearly presented to him ; yet they 
are interesting enough to awaken his concern and plain 
enough to enlist his attention. The Commercial Appeal 
has consistently contended during the last two or three 
years that territory which had been in our undisputed 
possession for thirty-one years and that had previously 
thereto been in the possession of Russia, from whom 
we bought Alaska, for a period of forty-two years, was 
hardly a subject for controversy; and that in surren- 
dering this strip of land to the claimant, Mr. Hay 
was guilty of an inexcusable surrender of American 

'Editorial from The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, 
April 13, 1902, by the editor, Walker Kennedy, Esq. 



30 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

territory. Never before in the history of land dis- 
putes, so far as we know, has the possessor of a piece 
of land surrendered that land to a claimant pending 
an adjustment. But Mr. Hay has broached this nov- 
elty in diplomacy, and has been praised in some quar- 
ters for having averted a serious difificulty. Mr. Hay's 
diplomatic success in this instance is very much like 
that of the well-armed man who gives up his purse 
to the footpad and thus evades a personal encounter. 

We have recently received a monograph on "The 
Alasko-Canadian Frontier" by Thomas Willing Balch 
of the Philadelphia bar, which so thoroughly exposes 
the unparalleled impudence of the Enghsh claim, that 
we make use of the facts marshalled therein, in order 
that the reader may get a clear idea of this contro- 
versy. Mr. Balch more than confirms our impressions 
on this subject and he demonstrates conclusively that 
the American title is perfect, and that the EngHsh 
contention is a mere gauzy exhibition of falsehood 
and nerve. The httle volume before us contains a 
number of maps prepared by Russian, French and 
English cartographers, all showing conclusively that 
from 1825 to 1898 the strip of land now claimed by 
England was considered a part of the country known 
now as Alaska. We are indebted to Mr. Balch's vol- 
ume for the facts which enable us to construct this 
interesting story. 

In the southeastern part of Alaska there is a long 
strip of coast land which shuts Canada out from ac- 
cess to the sea. To the west of this strip there are 
a number of islands which are admittedly a part of 
Alaska, but England now claims that the boundary 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 3 1 

line instead of running parallel with the coast at a 
distance of thirty miles therefrom, runs virtually up 
against the coast and makes a bee line over numer- 
ous bays and inlets. If the English claim is correct, 
England has a number of seaports on the Alaskan 
coast, but she is also entitled to the strip of land 
which had been the undisputed possession of Russia 
and the United States for seventy-three years. We 
propose to show that there is not a shadow of justice 
or right in this claim. 

In the year 1825 a treaty was signed between Eng- 
land and Russia fixing the boundary line between 
Alaska and Canada. In the preliminary negotiations 
Sir Charles Bagot made three attempts to get a bound- 
ary line something like the one now claimed, which 
would admit England to the sea. None of these at- 
tempts was successful. Russia maintained that the 
very strip of land now in dispute belonged to her, 
and she would not yield an inch. As the Russian 
agent. Count Nesselrode, expressed it, "Thus we wish 
to retain, and the English companies wish to acquire." 
Russia, however, would not yield, and in the treaty 
of 1825 between England and Russia the English claim 
was abandoned. This treaty fixes the botmdary line 
so plainly that a misinterpretation of it is inexcus- 
ble. There is no controversy about the boundary line 
until it reaches the north end of the Portland chan- 
nel. The English contention is that from that point 
it goes east virtually to the coast line, and follows 
the main coast line, jumping over, however, the fiords 
and inlets instead of winding with them. The Ameri- 
can contention is that the boundary line follows the 



32 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

summit of the mountains, mnning parallel to the coast, 
except where those mountains are more than thirty 
miles from the coast, in which event the line shall 
nm at a uniform distance of thirty miles, parallel 
with the windings of the coast. 

In article III. of the treaty of 1825, it is provided 
that "the line of demarkation shall follow the sum- 
mit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast." 
In article IV. it is provided "That, wherever the 
summit of the mountains which extend in a direction 
parallel to the coast, shall prove to be at the distance 
of more than ten marine leagues (thirty miles) from 
the ocean, the limit between the British possessions, 
and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia 
shall be formed by a line parallel with the windings 
of the coast, and which shall never exceed the dis- 
tance of ten marine leagues therefrom." 

The American claim is identical with the treaty of 
1825, in which England recognized Russia's right to 
the very strip of territory which she now claims. 
England then was fighting for access to the sea, Rus- 
sia was detennined to cut oft' entirely the British pos- 
sessions from access to the sea. The United States 
bought all the Russian territory in America from 
Russia in 1867, and, of course, this strip of land on 
the coast was a part of it. 

There are six maps in Mr. Balch's book which in- 
clude this strip of land in the Alaskan territory. One 
is a Russian map published in 1827. Another is a 
Russian map of 1829. A third is a Canadian map 
by Joseph Bouchette, Jr., deputy surveyor-general of 
the province of Lower Canada; and there are three 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 33 

English maps. The most conclusive is the British 
Admiralty Chart, pubHshed in 1877 and corrected to 
April, 1898, in which the British admiralty establishes 
conclusively the contention of the United States. 

Another proof of the correctness of the American 
contention is the fact that the Hudson Bay Company 
rented "the strip" from the Russian- American Com- 
pany in 1839. The fact that this strip was not Brit- 
ish territory has been recognized time and again by 
both the English and the Canadian governments. In 
1876, some Canadian constables were conducting a 
prisoner named Peter Martin through the strip. There 
he tried to escape and made an attack on one of the 
officers. He was subsequently tried in British terri- 
tory and convicted of attempted escape and assault. 
Hamilton Fish, secretary of state, protested vigorously 
against this infringement of the territorial sovereignty 
of the United States, and the Dominion government 
after an investigation, set Martin at liberty at once. 
This incident occurred in the very territory now claimed 
by England. We could multiply instances of British 
recognition of our right to the strip of coast land 
now claimed by Great Britain, but the treaty of 1825 
is conclusive. 

The significant part of the boundary line incident 
lies in the fact that England never laid claim to this 
territory until 1898. She had conceded Russia's right 
to it in 1825, and had never disputed the right of 
Russia or the United States to it for seventy-three 
years. In 1898 she set up her brazen claim. The 
discovery of gold in the Klondike was the exciting 
cause, of course. Unfortunately for us, there was 



34 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

at that time no vigorous American in the office 
of secretary of state. If there had been, he would 
not have tolerated the British claims for ten minutes. 
There is absolutely nothing to arbitrate in this ques- 
tion. All that is necessary is to follow the summit 
of the mountains, and nm a line thirty miles from 
the coast, parallel with the sinuosities of the shore. 
This is ptirely a problem in surveying. 

We have heard a great deal from the Republican 
party about the crime of pulling down the flag. Here 
is fifteen hundred square miles of American territory 
which has been in our possession, undisputed, from 1867 
to 1898, and an American secretary of state has been 
guilty of pulling down the flag there, and surrendering it 
to a blushless claimant who has no more title to it than 
the Negus of Abyssinia. We have now a "strenuous" 
person in the presidential chair. What does he pro- 
pose to do about it? Is he going to allow Secretary 
Hay to give away a strip of American territory that 
is said to be teeming with gold? Certainly it is time 
that the government of the republic was asserting its 
rights and conserving its own. 



NOTHING TO ARBITRATE." 

Since the discovery of gold in Alaska, the British 
government has endeavored to establish a claim to 
certain territory along the strip of land which follows 
the sinuosities of the coast from fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes, up to Mount Saint Ehas. 

1" Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Morning 
Express, April i6, 1902, by the Managing Editor, Albert F. Demers, 
Esq. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 35 

During the Polk administration (1845-49), the United 
States and Great Britain advanced conflicting claims 
to the territory lying between the Rocky mountains 
and the Pacific ocean. The supporters of Polk took 
up the cry of "Fifty-four forty or fight," meaning 
that the British empire must be shut out of terri- 
tory which would forever allow the United States to 
control a coast line along the Pacific ocean, from the 
Mexican border north to the Bering sea. At the time 
of this dispute, Russia asserted exclusive jurisdiction 
over and the exclusive right of the navigation on the 
Bering sea; and later on, when the Czar's government 
offered to sell the Alaskan possessions to the United 
States, the proposition was made that the purchaser 
maintain the claim to the territory west of the Rockies 
up to fifty-four degrees forty minutes, the most south- 
em point of Russian America, thereby closing the 
Pacific coast entirely against the British. But the in- 
fluence of the slave power appears to have compelled 
our government to yield all the vast country west of 
the Rockies and above the forty-ninth degree of north 
latitude thus permitting the British empire an outlet 
to the Pacific. By making this concession, the United 
States paved the way for further imperial aggressions 
along a coast which should now be all red, white and 
blue on the map of North America. 

In 1867, Russia sold Alaska to the United States. 
Great Britain acknowledged all our rights in the pur- 
chase, and was apparently satisfied with her control 
of a coast line from fifty-four degrees forty minutes 
down to the lower part of Vancouver Island. But 
greed for further territorial acquisition eventually 



36 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

caused her to cast covetous glances toward American 
territory, and to seek to establish claims, which, in 
view of the well-established rights of our government, 
are entirely baseless. 

The contempt in which Canadian officials hold our 
claims of sovereignty over that strip of territory run- 
ning from fifty-four degrees forty minutes north to 
Mount St. Elias was first manifested to the entire 
country, when certain Canadian constables took a 
prisoner named Peter Martin, who was convicted in 
the Cassiar district of British Columbia for some of- 
fence, from the place where he was convicted to and 
across United States territory lying along the Stickine 
river, a stream which flows into the estuaries south- 
east of Sitka. While on American soil, Martin as- 
saulted one of the constables, and then made an un- 
successful attempt to escape. At that time, Hon. 
Hamilton Fish was Secretary of State. Mr. Fish pro- 
tested vigorously against an infringement of territorial 
sovereignty of the United States in the territory of 
Alaska, and the Dominion government recognized the 
justness of his complaint by setting the prisoner free. 

The above comments have been suggested by Mr. 
Thomas Willing Balch's monograph, "The Alasko-Ca- 
nadian Frontier," which has just been issued by the 
press of Allen, Lane and Scott, of Philadelphia. Mr. 
Balch, who is a prominent member of the Philadel- 
phia bar, and a gentleman of scholarly attainments, 
read this monograph at the annual meeting of the 
Franklin Institute, January isth, 1902; and it is now 
reprinted in beautiful form from the Journal of that 
Institute for March, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 37 

Although Mr. Balch's monograph is brief, it shows 
great research, as well as a careful review of a ques- 
tion which has caused fears to be expressed that 
the imperial government might eventually secure ter- 
ritory which came to us through our purchase from 
Russia. 

Mr. Balch refers to the agreement between the United 
States and Great Britain, at the end of May, 1898, 
whereby an Anglo-American Joint High Commission 
was to be appointed, for the purpose of considering 
and arranging upon a basis more favorable to both 
sides, "such problems as the regulations of the North 
Atlantic fisheries, commercial reciprocity, and the Ber- 
ing Sea fishery question." Soon after the British gov- 
ernment coolly announced that "a difference of views" 
existed respecting the provisions of a treaty made be- 
tween Great Britain and Russia in 1825. These "dif- 
ference of views" concerned the meaning of the Alas- 
kan frontier. On August 23, 1898, the British gov- 
ernment blandly claimed that the eastern boundary of 
Alaska should run from the extremity of Prince of 
Wales Island at fifty-four degrees forty minutes, " along 
the estuary marked on recent maps as Pearse Canal, 
up to the top of Portland Canal, and from there 
straight to the coast, and then along the mountains 
on the mainland nearest to the shore and across all 
the sinuosities of the sea that advance into the con- 
tinent up to Mount Saint EHas." 

The meaning of the "difference of views" is plain. 
By pushing the Alasko-Canadian frontier, which has 
stood undisturbed for many years, toward the coast, 
the British government would gain access to the ocean 



38 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

through the estuaries which do not extend inland far- 
ther than American soil. 

Mr. Balch's purpose is to show that this recent con- 
tention of the imperial government is contrary to the 
provisions of the treaty of 1825, as well as to the con- 
duct of the claimants for more than three-quarters of 
a century. The treaty of 1825 specified the line of 
demarcation between British soil and the Alaskan pos- 
sessions, possessions which are now claimed by the 
United States. 

Although every word in the treaty is plain, there 
appears to have been some misunderstanding on the 
part of the British authorities for some years after 
the signatory powers had come to an agreement. 

Cotmt Nesselrode, who in behalf of Russia had as- 
sisted in the negotiations with Great Britain during 
the years 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825, aptly contrasted 
the efforts of Russia and Great Britain when the two 
countries were endeavoring to agree upon a frontier 
between their American possessions. He said: "Thus 
we wish to retain, and the English Companies wish to 
acquire." 

Mr. George Canning, the English foreign secretary 
at the time of the negotiations in which Count Nes- 
selrode was concerned, put forth no serious claim to 
any part of the Alaskan coast. Russia's assertion that 
she had exclusive jurisdiction over and the exclusive 
right of navigation on Bering Sea is what the British 
authorities wished to combat. 

Mr. Balch's monograph is illustrated with eight speci- 
mens of the cartographers' work, illustrations which 
show that this latest claim of the British government 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 39 

is simply preposterous. One of the maps included in 
the monograph was drawn by order of the Czar of 
Russia in 1827, and the work was performed by a cele- 
brated Russian navigator, Admiral Krusenstem. The 
other chart was first published by the British ad- 
miralty on June 21st, 1877. It has been corrected to 
April 1898. Both of these maps show that the Brit- 
ish authorities do not possess the shadow of a claim 
against the territory which the United States now 
holds. 

Mr. Balch says that our government should never 
consent to refer the present dispute to arbitration, 
simply because we have nothing to arbitrate. Every- 
body who has had the good fortune to read Mr. 
Balch's luminous treatise, will wonder at the presump- 
tuous conduct of the British authorities over the fron- 
tier question. 

THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY." 

Stories have drifted down to us from time to time 
of late alleging the destruction by Canadian officials 
of the monuments set up to mark the boundary be- 
tween Canadian territoiy and what was Russian terri- 
tory and is now territory of the United States. 

It is hard to believe that anybody with brains 
enough to fill any office would be foolish enough to 
do anything of this kind, to say nothing of the moral 
turpitude involved. 

If anybody has been thus stupid it can have no 
effect on the final decision of the dispute. It is a 



"Editorial from The Chronicle, Chicago, Illinois, April 21, 1902. 



40 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

simple and undeniable proposition that we now own 
what Russia once owned in that region. Just that 
and no more nor less. What Russia owned is to be 
determined from the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825. 

T. W. Balch, than whom there is no better advised 
authority, published not long ago an examination of 
the whole question with the title, "The Alasko-Cana- 
dian Frontier," thoroughly dispassionate and based on 
that treaty and the discussions between Russia and 
Great Britain that grew out of it. It is made clear 
that Russia claimed and the treaty established owner- 
ship and control of all navigable waters of all the is- 
lands and of a strip of the mainland reaching inland 
not less than thirty miles from the shore line and 
following — or paralleling — its sinuosities. That strip 
reached southward to a point not in dispute. 

It is not to be forgotten that when that treaty was 
made the United States claimed the territory north- 
ward to that point as was indicated in the old dem- 
ocratic partisan cry in the "40's of 'Fifty-four forty 
or fight!'" 

We did not stand up for our claim, but for all that 
it is just as certain as that the treaty was made that 
Russia believed we would stand up to it and that 
one of her leading intentions in making the treaty 
just what it is was to shut off Great Britain entirely 
from having any Pacific port on the west coast of 
America. 

Since the gold discoveries in Alaska Canada has set 
up a claim to a port within the territory from which 
the treaty was made expressly to exclude British 
ownership and control. Mr. Balch's statement, argu- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 41 

ment and proof from documentary sources seem to 
put the whole matter beyond dispute. He maintains 
that there is no foundation whatsoever for the Cana- 
dian claim and that it should not be conceded in any 
circumstances. 

His monograph is commended to Mr. Hay's most 
careful and conscientious study, with entire confidence 
that the American people will study it and stand by 
it whether he wishes or not. 



WHERE THE BOUNDARY LIES.'' 

In a little monograph, recently issued from the press 
of Allen, Lane and Scott, of Philadelphia, Thomas Will- 
ing Balch, of the Philadelphia bar, completely riddles 
the Canadian contention for a different construction 
of the Alaska boundary treaty than that which went 
unchallenged and unquestioned for nearly three-quar- 
ters of a century. The monograph in question was 
originally read before the Franklin Institute on Janu- 
ary 15 last, and is by all odds the most important 
contribution yet made to the controversy. 

Mr. Balch, from first authorities, covers the entire 
course of the negotiations between Great Britain and 
Russia, prior to the settlement of the boundary be- 
tween the Russian and British possessions on this con- 
tinent by the treaty of 1825. He shows how, from 
first to last, notwithstanding the utmost diplomatic 
efforts of the British representatives, Russia stead- 

" Editorial from The Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, Washington, April 
22, 1902. 



42 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

fastly refused to recede from the position which she 
took at the start; that she should retain entire con- 
trol of every inch of the coast line, including all bays, 
inlets and the mouths of all rivers, north of 54:40. 

The declared idea of Russia was to shut Great Britain 
from access to the sea at all points north of the Port- 
land canal. On the other hand, the representatives 
of Great Britain strenuously urged for some conces- 
sion which would give the interior posts of the Hud- 
son Bay Company access to the sea. Russia insisted 
on a line following the summit of the moimtain ranges 
parallel to the coast, and Great Britain finally con- 
ceded the claim, after many months of negotiation, 
during which Russia never receded from the position 
that she must retain possession of a lisiere, or strip 
of the coast, in order to prevent the Hudson Bay 
Company from having access to the sea and forming 
posts upon the mainland opposite to the Russian 
islands. 

Mr. Balch goes over these negotiations in detail, 
with quotations from the various notes which passed 
on the subject. As a final conclusion, Russia did agree 
to this modification of the original demands — that in 
cases where the motintain range should prove to be 
more than ten marine leagues from the sea, the line 
of demarcation should be drawn parallel to the sinu- 
osities of the coast. In the instructions to Stratford 
Canning, who conducted the final negotiations on be- 
half of Great Britain, he was told to make this de- 
mand, to guard England from having her territory 
pushed back to the eastward a hundred miles or more 
from the sea in case the crest of the mountains was 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 43 

found in reality to lie far back from the coast instead 
of close to it, as was then supposed. 

There never was, for the next fifty years and more, 
any question that Great Britain, by this treaty with 
Russia, definitely and finally abandoned all pretense 
to sovereignty over any inlet, bay or arm of the sea, 
north of the mouth of Portland canal. 

Facsimiles of maps are introduced by Mr. Balch, 
showing the line where the United States claims that 
it exists, dating from 1827 down to the present time. 
The first is an imperial Russian map of 1827. This 
is followed by a military map, printed in St. Peters- 
burg in 1829. A Canadian map of 1831, prepared by 
Joseph Bouchette, deputy surveyor general of the prov- 
ince of Lower Canada, shows identically the same 
line. In his " Narrative of a Journey Around the 
World," Sir George Simpson, governor in chief of 
the Hudson Bay Company's territories in North Amer- 
ica, published in 1847, a map is given, showing the 
same botmdary line as is at present claimed by the 
United States. 

Finally, in the testimony of Sir George Simpson, 
before a parliamentary committee, in 1857, he intro- 
duced a map, showing the boundaries of the Russian 
possessions in North America precisely as they are 
claimed by us to-day. In the same testimony, Gov- 
ernor Simpson described how, in order to secure access 
to the sea, his company had rented this strip of coast- 
line from Russia, for a term of years, at an annual 
rental of ;^i,5oo; and as Russia and Great Britain 
were at war at the time he had secured the consent 
of the British Government to the lease and also to 



44 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

an agreement to keep the peace on this continent, en- 
tered into at the same time. 

Many other maps are introduced into the monograph, 
including one prepared under the direction of the Brit- 
ish admiralty, corrected up to April, 1898. This ad- 
miralty chart, issued by the British government itself, 
shows the boundary line passing around the sinuosi- 
ties of the coast, so as to give the United States a 
continuous strip of territory, cutting off the Dominion 
of Canada from any contact with the coast line north' 
of 54:40. 

Against all of this array of evidence, and the un- 
broken acceptance of the American interpretation of 
the boimdary treaty for more than half a century, 
Canada has nothing to urge save the possibility of 
the language of the treaty being given a different in- 
terpretation than that which has always been accepted 
by Russia, by Great Britain and by all geographers 
in the past, and on the strength of which rights of 
enormous value have been acquired by American citi- 
zens in the strip along the Alaskan coast. 



"THE ALASKO-CANADIAN FRONTIER."" 



Thomas Willing Balch. 



Here is a book that Secretary of State Hay should 
read with prayerful consideration. It isn't a large book; 
only a monograph of forty-five pages, with some maps. 

• "Editorial from The Helena Independent, MontSina., April 27, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 45 

Mr. Hay could read it before breakfast; and having 
done this it would be well for him to read it three 
times a day for a month. The little book might be 
called "A Brief in the Case of the Attempted Steal 
of a Portion of Alaskan Territory by the British Gov- 
ernment." It is a forceful, and we think conclusive, 
presentation of the contention of the United States 
that this country is entitled to a strip of territory on 
^he Alaskan mainland "from the Portland Canal, in the 
south, up to Mount Saint Elias, in the north, so as to 
cut off absolutely the British possessions from access to 
the sea above the point of 54 degrees 40 minutes." 

Mr. Balch's presentation of the case was read origi- 
nally at the annual meeting of the Franklin Institute, 
Januarj' 15, 1902. Not only with facts but with maps 
does the author sustain the American contention with 
an array of proofs that clearly put the British claims 
out of court. He shows that Canada has no solid 
ground for its demand that the boundary question 
should be submitted to arbitration. 

" Whether the frontier shall pass over a certain 
mountain top or through a given gorge is a proper 
subject for settlement by a mutual survey. But by 
no possibiUty has Canada any right to territory touch- 
ing tidewater above fifty-four degrees forty minutes. 
The United States should never consent to refer such 
a proposition to arbitration." 

Since the discovery of gold in the Klondike the 
British empire now lays claim to a large and very 
important part of our Alaskan territory. More than 
seventy-five years ago Coimt Nesselrode expressed the 
American and British contentions of to-day when he 



46 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

said of the efforts of Russia and Britain to agree on 
a frontier between their American possessions: 

"Thus we wish to retain and the British companies 
wish to acquire." 

Mr. Balch gives proof that for more than fifty years 
Great Britain did not challenge the intei-pretation 
placed upon the Anglo- Russian treaty of 1825 by Rus- 
sia, and later by the United States, that Russia, and 
the United States, after the cession of Alaska in 1867, 
became entitled to a strip of mainland, following the in- 
dentations or sinuosities of the coast, from the Portland 
channel northward to Mount Saint Elias, "so as to cut 
off absolutely the British possessions from access to the 
sea above the point of fifty-four degrees forty minutes." 

Such was the status until August, 1898, when Eng- 
land claimed, at the Quebec Conference, that the 
Anglo- Russian treaty of 1825 gave to Canada the up- 
per portion of nearly all the estuaries between Portland 
canal and Moimt Saint Elias. The British claim made 
in 1898 was that the Alaskan boundary from the top of 
Portland canal should run directly to the coast, "and 
then along the mountains on the mainland nearest the 
shore and across all sinuosities of the sea that advance 
into the continent up to Mount Saint Elias." 

Mr. Balch traces with gieat care and precision the 
important negotiations leading up to the signing of 
the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825. England, as he 
shows, wished to get from Russia a disclaimer of the 
ukase of 182 1 that Bering sea and certain portions 
of the Pacific were to be held as Russian waters ex- 
clusively. Russia would not yield until the boundary 
line was so fixed as to give Russia the unbroken 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 47 

strip along the coast from Portland canal to Mount 
Saint Elias, "and on this last point England, after a 
long and stubborn resistance, finally yielded." 

With regard to the eastern boundary of this strip, 
England, as Mr. Balch shows, insisted that should the 
mountain summits prove to be more than ten marine 
leagues from the shore at any point "the line of de- 
marcation should be drawn parallel to the sinuosities 
of the shore at a distance of ten marine leagues. This 
ten league limit to the eastward was inserted * * * 
to guard England against a possibility of having her 
territory pushed back to the eastward a hundrefl miles 
or more from the sea in case the crest of the moun- 
tains was found in reality to lie far back from the coast 
instead of close to it, as was then supposed." 

Mr. Balch says, and shows by map repro<Juctions, 
that the American contention is supporte<l by the 
maps of the best cartographers of the world, " including 
those of England and Canada." The fac similes of 
these maps are certainly as convincing as anything in 
the text. One of these shows a British admiralty 
chart, published Jtme i, 1877, and corrected to April, 
1898; showing that up to that date the British ad- 
miralty itself upheld the territorial claims held and 
maintained by both the Russian and the United States 
governments ! 
, The author shows also that the Canadian and Brit- 
ish governments have recognized by certain acts the 
title of the United States to the strip under conten- 
tion, shutting Canada off from the sinuosities of the 
coast. In 1876 the Canadian authorities liberated a 
prisoner convictwl in the Canatiian courts for an of- 



48 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

fense committed at a place within the Alaska strip 
claimed by the United States. The release was made on 
the ground that the Canadian courts had no jurisdic- 
tion over the place where the offense was committed. 
For his painstaking and successful effort to clear 
up this subject, which is of international importance, 
and of very great importance to the United States, 
Mr. Balch deserves great credit. He has cleared up 
the subject in the small compass of forty-five pages. 
It is hoped that he has sent a copy to the Depart- 
ment of State at Washington. 



[The Alasko-Canadian Frontier was referred to with 
approval either in editorials or reviews in 1902 in The 
Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, March 15; the Army 
and Navy Journal, New York, March 29; The Reg- 
ister, New Haven, Connecticut, April 3 ; The Times, 
Philadelphia, April 6 ; The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, 
Ohio, April 8 ; The Record, Philadelphia, April 1 1 ; The 
Times, Pittsburg, Pa., April 12; The Times, Minne- 
apolis, Minnesota, April 14 ; Freeman's Journal, New 
York, April 19 ; The Herald-Transcript, Peoria, Illi- 
nois, April 23; The Conservative, Nebraska City, Ne- 
braska, April 24; The News-Tribune, Detroit, Michi- 
gan, May 4 ; The Chronicle, Chicago, Illinois, May 
11; The Light, San Antonio, Texas, May 19; The Legal 
Intelligencer, Philadelphia, June 13; Our Times, August 
1 5 ; and the whole article was reprinted by the Post- 
Intelligencer of Seattle, Sunday, May 25. In an edi- 
torial in The Evening Sun, New York, March 6, 1903, 
attention was called to the pamphlet.- — Editor.] 



the alaska frontier. 49 

Russian Imperial Embassy, 
Washington. 

[Received March i, 1901.] 
Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Sir: — I have been informed that you had in prepara- 
tion a book entitled, "Boundaries of Alaska." I would 
like to have two copies of this book as soon as it 
will be published and would be very much obliged 
to you if you would kindly let me know when it 
will be published. 

Very truly yours, 

P. ROGESTVENSKY, 

Secretary, Russian Embassy. 



Russian Imperial Embassy. 
No. 82. 11/24, March 1902. 

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Sir : — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two 
copies of your preliminary paper on the Alaskan 
Boundary question, which I did not fail to forward 
to the Imperial Foreign Office with the request to 
present it to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of 
Russia. 

Thanking you for your courteous remembrance of 
my request, I am, Sir, 

Very truly yours, 

COUNT CASSINI, 

Ambassador of Russia. 



50 letters and papers relating to 

Russian Imperial Embassy. 
No. 162. Washington, 1/14, May 1902. 

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa. 

Sir: — Your preliminary paper upon the Alaskan 
Boundary question was duly forwarded to the Im- 
perial Russian Foreign Office and was presented by 
His Excellency Count Lamsdorff to His Imperial 
Majesty the Emperor of Russia. His Majesty was 
most graciously pleased to order me to convey to 
you His gratification in receiving this interesting doc- 
ument. 

Taking great pleasure in informing you about this 
decision of my August Sovereign, I am. Sir, 

Very truly yours, 

COUNT CASSINI, 

Ambassador of Russia. 



MISSION OF THE BALCHES.'* 



Philadelphia Society Me.v in St. Petersburg Getting Informa- 
tion About Alaskan Boundaries. 

Information from St. Petersbtu"g, Russia, announces 
the arrival of Edwin Swift Balch and his brother, 
Thomas Willing Balch, of this city, who have been 
travelling in Europe, and gives as the purpose of their 
visit the collection of information and material regard- 
ing the boimdaries of Alaska. 

" The Times, Philadelphia, June 30, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 5 1 

BLUFF AND BLUSTER." 

A St. Petersburg dispatch recently announced that 
Edwin and Thomas Balch, of Philadelphia, were in 
the capital of the Russian empire for the purpose of 
collecting information and material with regard to the 
boundaries of Alaska. 

Thomas Willing Balch is an authority on the ques- 
tion of the Alaskan boundaries. At the annual meet- 
ing of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, on Jan- 
uary 15, 1902, he read a highly instructive and valu- 
able paper on "The Alasko-Canadian Frontier." This 
paper, which was subsequently published in book form 
proved conclusively that "There is no more reason for 
the United States to allow their right to the possession 
of this unbroken Alaskan lisiere (strip of territory) to 
be referred to the decision of foreign judges, than 
would be the case if the British Empire advocated a 
claim of sovereignty over the coast of Georgia or the 
port of Baltimore and proposed that this demand 
should be referred to the judgment of subjects of 
third powers." 

The fact that Mr. Thomas Balch is collecting fur- 
ther material for the purpose of proving the absurd- 
ity of Great Britain's claims regarding the Alaskan 
frontier will be hailed with satisfaction by the numer- 
ous Americans who have long admired the patriotic 
Philadelphian's intelligent opposition to the absurd 
pretensions set forth by a government which hopes to 
extend its Pacific seaboard in North America through 
bluff and bluster. 

'5 Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Morning Ex- 
press, JvHy s, 1902. 



52 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

ALASKA BOUNDARY." 



TWO PHILADELPHIANS SEARCHING FOR ORIGINAL 
RECORDS. 



An Inquiry at St. Petersburg Which May Contribute to the 
Settlement of the Dispute with Great Britain. 



[Special to the Public Ledger.] 

Washington, July ii [1902]. 

Two young men from Philadelphia, Pa., Thomas 
and Edwin Balch, are now in St. Petersburg engaged 
in a search which, if successful, will end the dispute 
between this country and Great Britain over the 
Alaskan boiindary and dispense with the modus vivendi 
of October 20, 1899, signed by Sec. of State Jolm Hay 
and Reginald Tower. 

Officials of the State Department, Washington, al- 
though asserting that the Balch brothers have no 
recognized status with the government, admit that 
they are and have been from the first fully aware 
of their mission and hope they will succeed. One 
official said: 

" The Balch brothers are simply investigating the 
matter as one would investigate any scientific subject, 
to gain more knowledge. One is a geographer and the 
other a student of International Law, but both have 
entered upon this labor con amore. We wish them 
every success and, of course, should they make any 

^ Public Ledger, Philadelphia, July 12, 1902. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 53 

valuable discovery, the United States would prob- 
ably profit by it, but they really have no official 
status." 

It is admitted that the Balchs visited the State 
department before starting on their mission and had 
a consultation with the officials. 

Since Vitus Behring, a Dane, naturalized in Russia, 
sailed through the strait to which he gave his name, 
in 1740, several surveys of the peninsula have been 
made. Naval Captains Krenitzen and Levascheff sur- 
veyed the peninsula and charted its coast in 1768, 
but the extent of their work is not now known, un- 
less their reports are still on file at the Russian 
capital, as the Balchs hope. Further efforts in this 
line were made by Juan Perez in 1774 and two years 
later James Cook visited Alaska. 

George Vancouver was sent to Alaska by Great 
Britain in 1792 to resurvey the coast and determine 
the liability of Spain for the seizure of three small 
British vessels the previous year, and it is probable 
that the geographers will investigate the report of his 
findings before concluding their researches. 

The first differences as to the exact land boundaries 
between Alaska and the United States were settled 
by a convention signed in St. Petersburg in 1824. 
This was followed the next year by a convention 
between Russia and Gi-eat Britain, under which the 
Hudson Bay company was excluded from the seacoast 
north of latitude 54 degrees, 40 minutes, and from the 
then unknown territory north of the St. EHas Alps, 
divided by the 141st meridian west of Greenwich. 

Another survey was made which lasted for six 



54 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

years, from 1826 to 1832, and in 1835 Russia estab- 
lished an admirable meteorological and magnetic ob- 
servatory in Sitka. 

[Similar articles appeared in 1902 in The Press, Phila- 
delphia, July 3; The Sun, Baltimore, July 12; The 
Herald, New York, July 13; The Record-Herald, Chicago, 
July 13; The Patriot, Jackson, Michigan, July 24; The 
North American, Philadelphia, August 3; and in other 
papers. — EditorJ 

SPEECH OF THE HON. CHARLES F. COCHRAN. 
MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM MISSOURI, IN 
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ON THE 
ALASKA BOUNDARY, JANUARY 20, 1903." 

Mr. Cochran said: — 

Mr. Chairman: — At the last session of Congress I 
introduced a resolution calling on the Secretary of 
State for certain information concerning the removal 
of ancient monuments marking the true boundary of 
the American territory in Alaska which has been oc- 
cupied and governed for more than five years by 
British military and civil officers. At that time the 
chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee gave us 
to understand that negotiations were in progress look- 

" District of Columbia Appropriation Bill. 

Speech of Hon. Charles F. Cochran, of Missouri, in the House 
of Representatives, Tuesday, January 20, 1903. 

The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of 
the Union, and having under consideration the Bill (H. R. 16842) 
making appropriations to provide for the expense of the Govern- 
ment of the District of Columbia for the fiscal year ending June 
30, 1904, and for other purposes. The Congressional Record, 
March 2, 1903, page 3117. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 55 

ing to the settlement of what he misnamed the con- 
troversy concerning that boundary line. 

In my judgment the controversy is over the forci- 
ble occupation of territory to which the British have 
no shadow of a claim and over which our sovereignty 
is as just and incontestable as it is over the Indian 
Territory or Oklahoma. 

Like Venezuela, The Transvaal, and the Orange 
Free State, the United States has witnessed British 
occupation of a rich mining region, followed by a 
chain of title; but unlike those weak and defenseless 
coimtries, we have evinced no resentment of the out- 
rage. It is in line with the traditional policy and 
conduct of the British Government, excepting only the 
fact that in general its depredations have been commit- 
ted against countries too weak to defend themselves. 

The discovery of the diamond mines in the Orange 
Free State, followed by the development of the Trans- 
vaal gold mines, sealed the doom of the South Afri- 
can Republics. 

The discovery of gold mines in Venezuela would 
have sounded the death knell of Venezuelan inde- 
pendence had it not been for the intervention of the 
United States. 

In the case of the South African diamond mines 
the unlawfulness of their appropriation was so flag- 
rant that long after the commission of the crime the 
matter was taken up by British clergymen, and the 
enormity of the offense was made so manifest that a 
veritable storm of public indignation compelled the 
authorities to pay a paltry sum as pretended compen- 
sation for stolen property worth many millions. 



56 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

The mournful story of the recent war in South 
Africa — a story replete with convincing proof that in 
the lexicon of this rapacious power there are no such 
words as honor, justice, or mercy — is foimd the bloody 
sequel. In the blackened ruins of desolated homes 
and the innumerable graves of the brave defenders of 
liberty and independence which dot the landscape from 
Spion Kop to Pretoria are the somber memorials of a 
crusade incited by cupidity and avarice, and waged 
with a relentlessness and ferocity seldom excelled by 
the savages of the jungles — a crusade entered upon 
with the deliberate piupose of establishing British sov- 
ereignty over the Transvaal gold mines. 

The controversy over the Venezuelan gold mines is 
stiU fresh in the minds of Americans. The discovery 
of the mines was the signal for claim of sovereignty 
over a vast area to which theretofore Great Britain 
had made no claim. Geographers had concurred in 
describing this country as a part of Venezuela. The 
map makers, without exception, had included it witliin 
the boundaries of the republic. But when gold was 
discovered the British claim of ownership was brazenly 
asserted, and the little Republic was told that with- 
out parley or discussion this claim must be allowed. 
It was idle for Venezuela, in her weakness, to chal- 
lenge the attention of Great Britain to the fact that 
for centuries the map makers had placed these lands 
within her borders. The freebooter nation was mak- 
ing ready to take the booty by force, and undoubt- 
edly would have done so had not the United States 
intervened and compelled the arbitration of the con- 
troversy. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 57 

Mr. Chairman, who would have believed that this 
great Republic would ever tamely submit to a simi- 
lar outrage? And yet I affirm that that is precisely 
what we have done. It had been said, and truthfully, 
that the victims of these numerous aggressions were 
too weak to defend their rights, and it had been be- 
lieved that had they been capable of self-defense no 
effort would have been made to despoil them. 

But Americans have lived to see Great Britain take 
possession of American gold fields and establish on 
American soil a British settlement. They have seen 
American prospectors and miners expelled from Ameri- 
can soil by the aggression of British constabulary and 
have seen British speculators and promoters seize and 
acquire title to the richest placer gold mines in the 
world, and they have seen an American Secretary of 
State acquiesce in this palpable invasion of American 
territory, contenting himself with a stipulation that 
at some future time the two Governments will try to 
reach an amicable agreement in the premises. So the 
matter stands. 

Mr. Chairman, I declare that by the arts of diplo- 
macy — by twirling our Secretary of State about his 
finger as a child might a cat's tail — Lord Pauncefote 
has accomplished in Alaska precisely what British 
armies have accomplished in other parts of the world 
by menace and by force. He has reduced to British 
ownership a vast region in which are the richest gold 
mines in the world. 

I hold in my hand a complete digest and history 
of the Alaskan boundary controversy, written and 
contributed to the Franklin Institute Journal by 



58 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Thomas Willing Balch, a distinguished, capable, and 
conscientious investigator, student, and writer. No 
man can read it without coming to the conclusion 
that Great Britain never at any time between the 
date of the negotiation of her treaty with Russia fix- 
ing the boimdary between Alaska and the British 
possessions and 1898 set up any claim of ownership 
of the disputed territory; that, on the contrary, the 
very territory now in dispute was held by Russia 
down to the time of our purchase of Alaska, and 
that we held it down to 1898 without intimation of a 
claim of title by Great Britain. 

Furthermore, that during Russia's occupation of it 
the Hudson Bay Company, an English trading com- 
pany, with the consent of the British Government, and 
the Russian Trading Company, with the consent of 
the Russian Government, entered into a contract by 
which a portion of the territory in dispute was leased 
to British traders by Russian traders, that the British 
paid a consideration, first in furs and other com- 
modities, and later a cash consideration of $7,000 a 
year for the right of occupation of the territory to 
which they now claim title. 

It only requires a casual investigation of public 
documents easily accessible to convince any investi- 
gator that thers is no shadow of a foundation for the 
British claim to the territory she acquired by forcible 
invasion and holds by virtue of an agreement which 
is disgraceful to American diplomacy and a stigma 
upon national honor. Every line of the correspond- 
ence between Russia and England during the negotia- 
tion of the treaty fixing the boundary; the terms of 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 59 

the treaty itself; every map known to the world dur- 
ing seventy-five years that elasped before the prepos- 
terous claim was advanced; the official charts of the 
British Admiralty; the geographies used in all the 
schools in Christendom, including the schools, colleges, 
and universities of Great Britain from 1828 tmtil 
1898 — all these written and printed testimonials, 
coupled with Russian occupation until 1868, followed 
by American occupation until 1898, are arrayed against 
what — the forcible occupation of the country by the 
Canadian mounted police, and the naked and baseless 
claim of British ownership ! 

Mr. Chairman, as a full presentation of the case, I 
here present as part of my remarks, the whole case, 
the paper I have referred to. It quotes copiously 
from the diplomatic correspondence, and contains a 
concise history of the negotiations between Russia 
and Great Britain which resulted in fixing the bound- 
dary so unmistakably that there is no possible ground 
for dispute: 

[Here Mr. Cochran inserted, with the exception of 
the maps, the whole of "The Alasko-Canadian Fron- 
tier," as it was printed in the Journal of the Franklin 
Institute oi March, 1902. Then Mr. Cochran resumed: — ] 

Mr. Chairman, I can add nothing to this document. 
It tells the whole story. It is drawn from official 
sources and is incontrovertible. It shows that seventy- 
five years ago Great Britain explicitly relinquished 
any pretense of ownership of the country she has 
deliberately invaded, and has ever since acquiesced in 



6o LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

the possession of it, first by Russia and later by the 
United States. 

Concerning the great value of the gold mines situate 
in the region of which we have thus been despoiled, 
the American people are well informed, and if hereto- 
fore they have entertained a doubt of American 
ownership, a glance at the admitted facts here set 
forth will remove it. 

Mr. Chairman, the origin of the preposterous and 
insolent claim to these gold fields is not obscure. It 
was trumped up by English and Canadians, speculat- 
ors and adventurers, just as the claim to the African 
diamond mines and the conspiracy against the liberty 
of the Boers were invented by Cecil Rhodes and his 
copartners. The originators of the claim had forcibly 
invaded and occupied the country long before the 
claim of ownership was advanced. Having seized the 
country, they desired to reduce all that is worth any- 
thing within the boundaries to private ownership. 
With this in view, Lord Pauncefote, the British 
Minister, entered into negotiations with his very good 
friend, the Secretary of State. The result was a 
foregone conclusion. 

Our State Department acquiesced in the suggestion 
that Great Britain should hold the conquered country 
pending a settlement. Sir, I use the word "con- 
quered" advisedly. When we bought Alaska, the 
Russians, then in possession of this country, handed 
it over to us. We retained possession until 1897. 
Then the Canadian movmted police, an armed force, 
took forcible possession, expelled American prospect- 
ors and miners and American property owners from 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 6 1 

it, and later established the civil jurisdiction of the 
Canadian government. 

If this was not an invasion, what was it? If it was 
an invasion and resulted in occupation of the country, 
the expulsion of the sovereignty claiming it, and the 
establishment of the sovereignty of the invader, what 
was it, if not a conquest? 

Were these facts known to the Secretary of State 
when he consented that pending negotiations, by 
which somewhere in the distant future, somehow, 
this controversy as to this bovmdary line should be 
settled, the British might retain possession? If he 
did not know them, such ignorance on the part of 
the chief Cabinet officer of the Republic is to be 
deplored. If he did know them, it was the most 
cowardly, the most contemptible, and most pusillani- 
mous surrender of national rights ever witnessed in 
the history of the diplomatic negotiations of a great 
country. 

Mr. Hepburn. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman 
permit me to ask him a question? 

The Chairman. Does the gentleman yield? 

Mr. Cochran. Certainly. 

Mr. Hepburn. The gentleman has characterized 
this conduct in very severe terms. 

Mr. Cochran. I have, sir. 

• Mr. Hepburn. How does he think that compares 
in enormity with the surrender of all of the territory 
between the forty-ninth parallel and 54° 40'? 

Mr. Cochran. I will answer that. The gentleman 

Mr. Hepburn. The gentleman will remember 

Mr. Cochran. Just a moment, I want to answer 



62 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

your question. I do not want the gentleman to 
make a speech. That controversy, like this one, was 
with the British Government. It occurred when our 
weakness as a military and financial power made our 
public men and the people hesitate to go to war if 
such a misfortune could be honorably avoided. Yet 
I do not believe that from the Pacific to the Atlantic 
there was at that time a single American citizen who 
was not willing to adopt as the slogan of a war that 
should last a decade, if necessary, " Fifty-four forty 
or fight." 

Mr. Hepburn. Will the gentleman permit me to 
ask another question? 

The Chairman. Does the gentleman yield? 

Mr. Cochran. Certainly. 

Mr. Hepburn. He undoubtedly recalls the fact 
that President Polk in his first message to Congress 
declared that our title to all of that territory lying 
up to 54° 40' was beyond dispute and that that was 
the Democratic contention during the whole contest 
of 1844. 

Mr. Cochran. I will answer that question without 
referring to President's messages. The bovmdary line 
of 54° 40' was reached in the course of the very 
negotiations which resulted in fixing the boundary 
line between British Columbia and Alaska. When 
Russia asserted her jurisdiction down to the fifty-first 
parallel of latitude, the pretension was controverted 
by both Great Britain and the United States. 

Each country entered into independent negotiation 
with Russia for the purpose of settling that contro- 
versy. We had little difficulty in reaching a settle- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 63 

ment. Russia speedily agreed with us that as to the 
United States the boundary between the United States 
and Russian America should be 54° 40', and that in 
reference to the territory below 54° 40' we could fight 
it out with Great Britain, and Russia would negotiate 
as to everything above 54° 40' and fight it out with 
England. Then followed the prolonged diplomatic 
struggle which terminated in so fixing the boundary 
between British Columbia and Russian America as to 
exclude Great Britain from a seaport on the Alaskan 
coast. In the teeth of this treaty, she has seized a 
seaport and contiguous territory in which the rich 
gold fields I have mentioned are situated. 

Mr. Chairman, when is this controversy to be finally 
settled? Is there anything so intricate in it that it 
has been necessary to postpone a final settlement for 
five years, the period of British occupation? 

What has led Great Britain to procrastinate and 
our Secretary of State to sit supinely, without even 
an attempt to close this controversy? It is this: 
There is absolutely no value in the land. It is not 
suitable for agricultural purposes. It is good for 
nothing, except mining purposes. It is said to be the 
richest mining field in the world, and this is probably 
true. During the four years of British occupation 
every prospect has been explored, every available 
mine has been developed, and British subjects, not 
American citizens, are the legal owners of all this 
property. No matter what may be the final outcome, 
the invader has accomplished his purpose. He has 
appropriated our gold mines to his own use. 

The newspapers have told the story. Immediately 



64 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

after the occupation of the country American miners 
and prospectors were driven out of it by the dis- 
crimination of the British authorities against them, 
and today the subjects of his Majesty King Edward 
own everything that is worth owning; and when we 
shall finally conclude the negotiations, assuming that 
sovereignty will be graciously restored to us, what 
will be the result? Why, we will thereafter be al- 
lowed to furnish the constabulary, the judiciary, etc., 
for a British mining camp in which American citizens 
have hardly a dollar's worth of interest. What sense 
is there in claiming this piece of territory after every- 
thing of value within its borders has been absorbed 
by British speculators, traders, and miners? 

Mr. Chairman, I have said, and I think I have 
proven by irrefutable testimony, that there is not the 
color of justification for England's claims in the pre- 
mises. Probably apologists for the conduct of the 
Secretary of State will say that, even conceding all 
this, it was not improper to agree to settle the con- 
troversy by diplomacy. Well, let us, for the sake of 
argument, take this view of it. 

Was it anything short of pusillanimous cowardice 
to surrender possession? England had not hinted at 
such a thing as a title to this land for seventy-five 
years. We had held possession of it for nearly forty 
years. If, without attempting to supplant us, with- 
out attempting to take the country by force, with- 
out attempting to extend her boundaries and sover- 
eignty so as to include it, England had raised the 
pending question, the case would present a different 
aspect; this would have left the country within our 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 65 

jurisdiction pending a settlement. It would have enabled 
Americans instead of British subjects to take posses- 
sion of the gold mines. This would not have enabled 
aliens to drive Americans out of the country. The 
object was larceny, and the traditional policy of the 
British Government was resorted to. First the coimtry 
was forcibly occupied by an armed force. Then civil 
officials named by the Canadian Government were 
installed there, and the claim of ownership followed 
on the heels of this flagrant insult to the American 
Republic. 

Mr. Chairman, if, on account of his abounding love 
of the mother country, the Secretary of State felt 
constrained to condone this insult and hold a parley 
where self-respect demanded sterner measures, at least 
he should have said to the British Government: "Re- 
store the status existing prior to the discovery of the 
gold mines, vacate the disputed territory, withdraw 
your official representatives from it, and we are ready 
to negotiate." Why was this not done? 

It behooves Republicans high in authority to be 
prepared to answer this question. The American peo- 
ple will not much longer tolerate a party responsible 
for a pohcy so cowardly and so stupid as to excite 
the contempt and amazement of even the partisans 
of the Administration. 

Mr. Chairman, I have not exaggerated the facts 
nor too strongly portrayed the insolence of the claims 
of Great Britain to ownership of part of our Alaskan 
possessions, nor overdrawn the pitiful spectacle pre- 
sented by the high dignitary, who is responsible for 
the foreign policy of the United States and for this 



66 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

sickening surrender of the rights of American citizens, 
who have been driven from American gold fields by 
the Canadian constabulary. I repeat the criticism 
which brought the gentleman from Iowa to his feet, 
and again declare that never in the history of diplo- 
macy has there occurred a surrender of a great na- 
tion's rights and submission to insolence and insult 
so pitiftil, so cowardly, so contemptible, so pusillani- 
mous. (Loud applause). 

I yield back the remainder of my time. 



CANADA'S CLAIMS WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION.'^ 

That the attitude of Canada in the dispute over 
the Alaskan boundary is utterly tmjustifiable, that it 
is an afterthought without discoverable precedent or 
source in the history of the region, that it is dis- 
proved by the utterances of the greatest statesmen of 
both the Dominion and its mother-coimtry, and that, 
finally, neither Russia nor Great Britain nor Canada 
ever, until within the most recent years, recognized 
the possibility of such a stand as that now taken by 
the third-named — this is the ably demonstrated thesis 
of Thomas Willing Balch's volume on "The Alaska 
Frontier." 

This book, the work of a Philadelphian whose years 
of laborious investigation concerning the question have 
won him a reputation virtually international, consti- 
tutes, all things considered, the most effective, accu- 

" Review in The Press, Philadelphia, February 22, 1903, written by 
the Managing Editor, Harvey Maitland Watts, Esq. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 67 

mulative and crushing blow thus far dealt the Canadian 
claim. In the first place, it shows that all the Rus- 
sian maps, all the British maps and — until a year or 
two ago, after the "claim" had been manufactured — 
all the Canadian maps openly supported the United 
States. In the second place, written before the recent 
commission had been appointed, it protests against our 
submitting so simple a case to the formality of arbi- 
tration. 

And, in the third place, not only is it clearly writ- 
ten and logically argued, not only does it command 
the attention by the evident fact that it is based 
upon a careful, not to say profound, research of 
original documents both here, in England and in Rus- 
sia, but it becomes, to all appearances, irrefutable be- 
cause the bulk of the evidence offered against Canada 
is out of the mouths of eminent Canadian and English- 
men, speaking in an official capacity. 

A Plain Tale of Exploration. 

Mr. Balch begins his work by a plain, unvarnished 
narrative of the growth of the dispute. 

"The advance of the United States and of England," 
he says, "across the continent of North America toward 
the Pacific Ocean, of Spain along the Pacific coast 
toward the north, and of Russia across Siberia to the 
east, brought about in the first quarter of the nine- 
teenth century a clashing of interest between these 
Powers over the ownership of the northwest coast of 
America and its hinterland. 

"The Americans, Lewis and Clark, crossed the con- 
tinent and discovered the Columbia River, and thus 



68 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

by right of discovery, began the claims of the United 
States upon the northwest coast. Whatever rights 
France had in the far northwest reverted to the 
United States by the Louisiana purchase in 1803. 
The claims of Spain to the territory lying to the 
north of California were merged by treaty in 1819 in 
those of the United States. The Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany in the quest for furs sent its trappers and ad- 
vanced its trading posts further and further west; 
and, as the authorized agent of the British crown, it 
carried the sovereignty of the English King across the 
continent nearer and nearer to the Pacific. Cook, 
Vancouver and other English seamen, too, sailed along 
the North American shore washed by the Pacific Ocean. 
The Russian Cossacks, first under an ataman named 
Yermak, gradually bore, in their search for the valu- 
able sable skins, the sway of the 'Great White Tsar' 
across Siberia to the waters of the Pacific, thus prov- 
ing that Bishop Berkeley was only half right when 
he wrote — 'Westward the course of empire holds its 
way.' 

"Then with the exploring expedition commanded by 
the Cossack, Deshneflf, who probably sailed through 
Bering Strait in 1648, and with that led in 1741 by 
Bering, the Dane, across the Pacific to the great land, 
the bolshaid zemlia, to the east, the Russians began 
to explore and then to settle on the American con- 
tinent. 

"The United States, England and Russia continued 
to affirm their sovereignty to greater and greater 
areas of land in the northwest part of the Ameri- 
can continent. And Russia even went so far as to 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 69 

assert her right to the absolute dominion over Ber- 
ing Sea and a large extent of the northern part of 
the Pacific Ocean." 

England and Russia. 

This brought England and Russia to a definite dif- 
ference which was only settled after a year's arduous 
negotiations, when the treaty of 1825 was signed at 
St. Petersburg whereby the Muscovite Government 
withdrew its claim to sovereignty over a portion of 
the high seas, and a frontier was drawn from the 
Arctic Ocean, along the meridian of 141 degrees West 
longitude to Mount Saint Elias, and then was to fol- 
low the crest of the mountains running parallel to 
the coast, to the head of the Portland Channel, and 
down that sinuosity to the ocean in fifty-four degrees 
forty minutes north latitude. But if at any point 
the crest of the mountains proved to be at a greater 
distance than ten marine leagues from the shore, then 
the frontier should run parallel to the sinuosities of 
the coast at a distance of ten marine leagues inland, 
but never further than that from the shore. 

Never Contested Russian Position. 

For over fifty years Mr. Balch points out England 
never contested the interpretation proclaimed by both 
■ Russia and America that, after the sale of Alaska, 
the United States owned a strip of territory from the 
Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias, cutting off 
Great Britain from access to the sea "above the 
point of 44 degrees, 40 minutes." It was not until 
1898 that England claimed that the right interpre- 



70 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

tation of the treaty gave Canada the upper portion 
of virtually all fiords between the canal and St. 
Elias. 

That this interpretation never occurred to the 
original English negotiators Mr. Balch proves by a 
careful review of their utterances and attitude during 
the negotiations of 1822-25. "It is not," said George 
Canning, "on our part essentially a negotiation about 
limits. It is a demand of the repeal of an offensive 
and unjustifiable arrogation of exclusive jurisdiction 
over an ocean of unmeasured extent." The with- 
drawal of Russia's claim to Pacific dominion secured 
England had accompUshed her purpose. 

The text of the resulting treaty was "the crucial 
and final statement of how the line of demarcation 
between Alaska and the Dominion of Canada should 
be found." A review of the pourparlers, says Mr. 
Balch, shows that the negotiators intended to in- 
clude within the Russian territory a lisi^re on the 
mainland from the Portland Channel up to Mount 
Saint Elias, and extending between those points far 
enough inland to exclude the English possessions 
absolutely from access to the coast line above fifty- 
four degrees forty minutes. Within recent years some 
Canadians have tried to read into that agreement a 
meaning radically different from the interpretation 
which all the world held. 

Not only are there within the text of the treaty 
itself expressions and provisions that place beyond 
question the fact that Britain should not have an ac- 
cess to tide water on the northwest coast above fifty- 
four forty; but also the whole course of history from 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 71^ 

1825 until a comparatively recent time shows that 
the authorities on the British side of the line thought 
so too. 

And even as recently as August, 1901, the British 
Government set the seal of its approval upon that 
view of what the treaty of 1825 meant by republish- 
ing Admiralty Chart No. 787, upon which the frontier 
is marked from the head of the Portland Canal and 
then up on the Continent to Mount Saint Elias so as 
to include all the sinuosities in their entirety within 
United States territory. 

The Russian Maps. 

Mr. Balch then goes on to demonstrate his case by 
equally clear and authoritative references to official 
Russian maps, including that of A. J. de Krusenstem 
(1827), pubHshed at St. Petersburg by order of the 
Czar, and that of the Russian War Office issued in 1835. 

Against these England never protested and in 1831 
a map was prepared by Joseph Bouchette, Jr., "Dep- 
uty Surveyor General of the Province of Lower Can- 
ada," and published by James Wyld, geographer to 
the King, "with his Majesty's most gracious and 
special permission," which reaffirmed the boundary 
given by Krusenstem. 

This was borne out by the testimony given by Sir 
George Simpson at the 1857 investigation of the Com- 
mons into the affairs of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
by numerous other English maps and by the result 
of the "Dryad" affair when the crew of that British 
brig was refused access to the Russian waters and the 
consequent lease of all of the lisi^re from the Hud- 



72 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

son's Bay Company. "It was clearly iinderstood," 
says Mr. Balch, "that Sir George Simpson and Baron 
Wrangell made the agreement whereby the American 
Company leased the lisifere to the EngUsh Company, 
that owing to this strip of lisiere, the territories of the 
Hudson's Bay Company were shut off from access to 
tidewater. This is proved absolutely by the testimony 
that Sir George Simpson gave himself in 1857." 

Mr. Balch then sketches the circumstances of the 
sale of Alaska, conclusively showing that at that time 
there was no question such as has now arisen. Sum- 
ner himself, in indorsing Seward's policy in the Sen- 
ate, said:— 

"I am glad to begin with what is clear and be- 
yond question. I refer to the boundaries fixed by 
the treaty. Commencing at the parallel of fifty-four 
degrees forty minutes north latitude, so famous in 
our history, the line ascends Portland Channel to the 
mountains, which it follows on their summits to the 
point of intersection with the 141st degree west lon- 
gitude, which line it ascends to the Frozen Ocean, or 
if you please, to the North Pole. This is the eastern 
boundary, separating this region from the British pos- 
sessions, and it is borrowed from the treaty between 
Russia and Great Britian in 1825 establishing the re- 
lations between these two Powers on this continent. 
It will be seen that this boundary is old; the rest is 
new." 

Recognized Our Claim, 

"Besides," comments Mr. Balch, "by subsequent 
acts and maps, the British Government confirmed the 
United States Government in its belief that it had 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 73 

bought from Russia, along with the rest of Alaska, 
a tongue of territory that, extending from Mount 
Saint Elias to the Portland Channel, passed around 
all the sinuosities of the coast and sufificiently far in- 
land to altogether exclude Canadian territory from 
touching tidewater on the Pacific coast at any point 
above 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude." 

Nor was that all. When, in 1871, British Columbia 
became a part of the Dominion, Canada, by a num- 
ber of acts and maps, recognized the validity of the 
American claims to an unbroken strip or lisi^re. The 
survey recommended by President Grant was not un- 
dertaken, but J. S. Dennis, Surveyor General of Canada, 
himself declared in 1874 that the boundary crossed 
the Skoot River, which does not come down to tide- 
water at all. 

To the same end Mr. Balch then tells of Hvmter's 
survey and of the "informal consultation" during the 
session of the Fisheries Conference (1887-88). "It be- 
comes evident," he declares, "that Canadians have 
advanced two separate claims." The first was that 
the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 did not refer by 
the phrase "Portland Channel" to the body of water 
thus named by Vancouver, and the second, originated 
in 1884, that the line shall not pass inland, but close 
along the coast-Hne and across nearly all the estu- 
aries. These claims are riddled by direct reference to 
admiralty charts, the "voyage of Vancouver," Cana- 
dian maps, the fundamental principles of international 
law from the day of Huig van Groot and a direct 
appeal to Littre for the correct definition of the French 
words "river" and ' oc6an." 



74 letters and papers relating to 

The Revelation of the Map. 

Turning again to Canadian maps, Mr. Balch, by 
those of the Canadian Church Missionary Society (1898), 
that exhibited by the Dominion Government in 1878 
and many others, proves indeed that it is difficult 
to see how the Canadian Government can in any 
way evade the evidence furnished against it by these 
official maps. "But," he adds, "the British Imperial 
Government is even more sharply blocked from back- 
ing up the Canadian claims by its own official ad- 
missions. For upon the British 'Admiralty Chart No. 
787,' giving the northwest coast of America from 
'Cape Corrientes, Mexico, to Kadiak Island,' prepared 
in 1876 by F. J. Evans, R. N., published in 1877 and 
corrected up to April, 1898, the frontier of the United 
States is marked from the x^rctic Ocean down along 
the one htmdred and forty-first degree of longitude west 
from Greenwich, and then advancing on the continent 
but passing round the sinuosities of the coast so as to 
give a continuous lisiere of territory cutting of? the 
Dominion of Canada from all contact with any of the 
fiords or sinuosities that bulge into the continent be- 
tween Mount Saint Elias and the Portland Channel, the 
frontier is drawn to the head of the Portland Chan- 
nel at about fifty-six degrees. But not satisfied with 
this official confirmation of the Russian and the United 
States claims, which was made only five months before 
the Quebec Conference met, the British Admiralty actu- 
ally renewed upon this same chart, corrected to August, 
1 90 1, more than two years after the conference ad- 
journed, their sanction of the boundary claimed first by 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 75 

Russia, and afterward by the United States. Thus the 
British Government itself has upheld both before the 
assembling of the Joint High Commission and also 
since that body adjourned the territorial claims held 
and maintained by both the Russian and the United 
States Governments, whereby Canada is not entitled 
to an outlet upon tidewater above fifty-four forty. 

Mr. Balch then outlines the opposing claims briefly 
and clearly and expresses himself as to arbitration. 
He says: "Whether the frontier should pass over a 
certain mountain top or through a given gorge is a 
proper subject for settlement by a joint survey; and 
by a mutual policy of give and take in an exchange 
of the interlapping bits of territory, the sharp comers 
produced by a line run parallel to the indentations of 
the shore could be done away with. But by no pos- 
sibiUty has Canada any right to territory touching 
tidewater above fifty-four degrees forty minutes." 



THE ALASKAN COMMISSION." 

The attack made upon the Commissioners appointed 
by the President under the Alaskan boundary treaty 
by the Canadian Premier, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in the 
Canadian House of Commons on Friday last, was an 
extraordinary exhibition of tactlessness and interna- 
tional discourtesy. The leader of the Opposition, Mr. 
Borden, was, in his assault upon the Dominion Gov- 
ernment because it had not opposed the treaty, in a 
different position from that occupied by the Premier, 

"Editorial from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, March i6, 1903, 
by the editor, L. Clarke Davis, Esq. 



76 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

who cast his unmannerly slurs upon the American 
Commission as the chief official representative of his 
Government. Moderation could scarcely be expected 
from the former, who, as the aggressive leader of his 
party, no doubt felt justified in gaining all possible 
partisan advantage over his opponent, and he appears 
to have gone to the extreme limit of discourtesy to 
the Commissioners of this country when, because of 
the latter's declared unworthiness, he questioned the 
propriety of Great Britain appointing Commissioners 
to meet them. 

The assiunption that the American Commissioners 
are so prejudiced and partial as to be imfit to take 
part in the deliberations is a violent one, considering 
their distinguished character. There are few men in 
this country of greater personal and political distinc- 
tion than Messrs. Root, Lodge and Turner, and the 
Premier's assertion that they are not "jurists of re- 
pute" seems like a gratuitous insult to them and to 
President Roosevelt, who appointed them. 

It is fortunate that the new Dominion Government 
has not the appointment of the British Commission- 
ers, as in that case the contentious spirit shown al- 
ready by it would, if carried into the convention, de- 
feat the object of the treaty, which is that of settling 
amicably and definitely the Alaskan boundary line. 

The Canadian claim to certain parts of Alaska was 
not made imtil the United States revealed the great 
natural wealth of the country. The claim is foimded, 
as is shown by the recently published monograph of 
Thomas Willing Balch, of this city, on the subject, 
upon a report made in 1888 by the Chief of the 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. ']'] 

Canadian Geological Survey Department, Dr. George 
M. Dawson, whose basis of claim, as Mr. Balch 
shows, is a gross mistranslation of a part of the 
French text of the Alaskan treaty, which he caused 
to decree that in all places where the mountain crest 
was fotmd to be more than ten marine leagues from 
the coast the boundary must run "parallel to the 
coast." This is a perversion of the language of the 
treaty in a most vital particular, as, if Dr. Dawson's 
quotation were accurate, so would be the Canadian 
contention, which is that the boundary line should 
follow the trend of the coast line ten leagues shore- 
ward therefrom. But the quotation was wrong, inas- 
much as the treaty does not declare that the line 
must nm "parallel to the coast," but "parallel to 
the sinuosities of the coast." 

This is a wholly different matter, and does, as the 
makers of the treaty no doubt intended, give the 
entire coast line of Alaska to the United States, to 
the exclusion of Canada or any other country except 
by and through the courtesy of this country. 

That is the American contention, and it should be 
maintained by the "jurists of repute" that the 
President has chosen, and who will honorably and 
impartially represent this country in the convention. 



New York, March 25th, 1903. 
Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., Philadelphia, Pa. 

My Dear Sir: — I deeply regret missing you the other 
day when you again did me the honor of calling here. 
I would like to tell you personally how much I have 



78 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

enjoyed your masterly book on the Alaska Boundary, 
and I wanted also to compare notes with you on 
what I consider the most ill-advised treaty on the 
subject, which has lately been ratified. It could never 
have been ratified without a shabby trick, which I 
cannot help considering worthy of the treaty, and I 
fear that it means considerable trouble for our coim- 
try hereafter. At all events, however, your book will 
be of the greatest possible assistance in the presen- 
tation of the American case. 

Will you not kindly let me know beforehand when 
you come to New York the next time, so that I may 
surely be in? 

In view of the large emigration of Americans into 
the Northwest Territory as well as the Yukon Dis- 
trict, I feel that there is a great duty devolving upon 
conservative and well informed citizens of both this 
coimtry and Great Britain. Enough inflammable ma- 
terial is accumulating up in that region to precipitate 
an "outlander" question much more serious than the 
one at Johannesburgh, upon us at any moment, and 
nothing in my opinion tends more to contribute to this 
end than the show of weakness which our Government 
has just made in consenting to the Alaska Treaty. 

There are many features of the case in which I 
know you will be interested but which cannot well be 
put on paper. 

Again hoping soon to have the pleasure of seeing you 
and congratulating you upon your work, I remain, 
My dear sir, 

Very faithfully yours, 

FREDERICK W. HOLLS. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 79 

CLEARLY PRESENTED.'" 

About a year ago The Evening Journal spoke of 
a monograph on the Alaskan boundary question by 
Thomas WilHng Balch, of Philadelphia, in which he 
clearly presented the facts on which the United States 
bases its claim to the territory whose possession the 
Canadian government has xmdertaken in recent years 
to dispute. He has now elaborated his argument and 
published it in book form under the title, "The Alaska 
Frontier." 

Mr. Balch is a prominent member of the younger 
division of the Philadelphia bar. He has devoted much 
time and labor to exhaustive study of the subject 
which he discussed. His previous writings on the same 
subject attracted wide attention and evoked much 
favorable comment, and his latest production is sure 
to be read with deep interest, especially as the bound- 
ary question is just about to be taken up by the 
joint commission appointed under the terms of the 
Alaskan boundary treaty. 

Mr. Balch's latest monograph is somewhat of the 
nature of a legal brief. It is clear, direct, concise and 
yet comprehensive, and amply fortified with references 
and maps. Its purpose is, as the author says, to 
state "briefly, but emphatically the title of the United 
.States to a continuous, unbroken lisi^re or strip of 
territory on the northwest American continental shore 
between Mount St. Elias and fifty-four degrees forty 
minutes north latitude." 

Mr. Balch points out again that the claim of the 

«• Editorial from the Albany Evening JoMrwa/, William Barnes, Jr., 
Esq., President, March 28, 1903. 



8o LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

United States rests fundamentally upon the descrip- 
tion of the boundary line in the treaty of 1825 be- 
tween Russia and England. He reviews the proceed- 
ings leading up to the conclusion of that treaty and 
quotes it in full, showing that according to articles 
three and four, the boundary between what was then 
Russian America and British America " was drawn 
from the Arctic ocean, along the meridian of one hun- 
dred and forty-one degrees west longitude to Mount 
Saint Elias, and then was to follow the crest of the 
mountains running parallel to the coast, to the head 
of the Portland Channel, and down that sinuosity to 
the ocean in fifty-four degrees forty minutes north 
latitude. But if at any point the crest of the moun- 
tains proved to be at a greater distance than ten 
marine leagues from the shore, then the frontier should 
run parallel to the sinuosities of the coast at a distance 
of ten marine leagues inland, but never further than 
that from the shore." This boundary line cut off abso- 
lutely the British possessions from access to the sea 
above the point of fifty-four degrees forty minutes. 

Mr. Balch goes on to show that in all the years 
intervening between the ratification of that treaty and 
the acquisition of Alaska by the United States from 
Russia no question was raised as to the boundary 
line. It was drawn as described on all maps pub- 
lished by both Russia and England. In his speech 
advocating favorable action on the agreement entered 
into by Secretary Seward for the purchase of Alaska, 
in March, 1867, Senator Sumner said: 

"I am glad to begin with what is clear and beyond 
question. I refer to the boundaries fixed by the treaty. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 8 1 

Commencing at the parallel of fifty-four degrees forty 
minutes north latitude, so famous in our history, the 
line ascends Portland Channel to the mountains, which 
it follows on their summits to the point of intersection 
with the one hundred and forty-first degree west . long- 
itude, which line it ascends to the Frozen Ocean, or, 
if you please, to the North Pole. This is the eastern 
boundary, separating this region from the British pos- 
sessions, and it is borrowed from the treaty between 
Russia and Great Britain in 1825, establishing the rela- 
tions between these two powers on this continent. It 
will be seen that this boundary is old; the rest is new." 

The purchase treaty was ratified and the United States 
came into possession of territorj'^ whose limits had been 
definitely fixed forty -two years before, and remained 
undisputed in the interval. As Mr. Balch says: 

" In buying Alaska, the United States understood 
that they obtained from Russia a continuous, tmin- 
terrupted strip of land on the continent from Mount 
St. Elias to the Portland Canal, whereby Great Britain 
was shut off from access to the Pacific Ocean above 
fifty -four degrees forty minutes. Secretary Seward 
and Senator Sumner so interpreted the purchase." 

And the British government made no protest either 
against the voiced claims or against the visual repre- 
sentation of the boundary line upon the map shortly 
thereafter published by the state department. 

■Thereafter, the boimdary line appeared as described 
in the purchase treaty on numerous maps published 
in England, including government maps. 

Not until 1698 did Canada advance its claim that 
the boundary line should pass across the sinuosities 



82 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

of the sea, instead of following them at the prescribed 
distance of ten marine leagues inland. That was when 
the opening of gold fields had made the territory more 
valuable and access to the sea more desirable for Canada. 
Mr. Balch then devotes considerable space to an 
argument tending to prove the absence of support for 
Canada's belated claim. He makes an excellent case 
for the United States. This monograph may be re- 
garded as a summary of the representations which 
the United States members of the joint commission 
will make to their colleagues. 



Department of State. 

Washington, March 28, 1903. 
T. W. Balch, Esq., Philadelphia. 

Dear Sir: — In your work "The Alaska Frontier" 
you reproduce two maps. No. 7 on page 26 and No. 
8 on page 28, which you say were taken from atlases 
now in your possession. 

I should be much gratified if you would loan me 
those atlases for examination in connection with the 
preparation of the case of the United States before 
the Alaskan Boundary Tribunal, which has been en- 
trusted to me by the President. 

They can be sent by express to my address, De- 
partment of State, charges to be collected here. I will 
see that they are carefully preserved and safely re- 
turned to you. 

Very truly, 

JOHN W. FOSTER, 

Agent of the United States before the 

Alaskan Boundary Tribunal. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 83 

[The first of the two maps to which Mr. Foster refers 
in the above letter is a map in a copy of Piadischefi's 
Geographic Atlas of the Russian Empire (printed both 
in Russian and French) now in the possession of my 
brother that belonged to Prince Alexander of Hesse, 
the brother of the Empress Alexander the Second of 
Russia. The titles and nomenclature of the Atlas are 
given both in Russian and French. The French title 
is: Atlas Geographique de V Empire de Russie, du Royaume 
de Pologne et du Grand Duche de Finlande * * * 
par le Fonctionnaire de la d" Classe Piadischeff, employ^ 
au D^pot Topographique militaire dans VEtat-Major de 
Sa Majesty Imp'eriale: Commenc'e en 1820 et termini en 
182^, revu et corrig^ en 1834. 

Map "No. 60" (a)" of this atlas is entitled, "Carte 
Generale de I'Empire de Russie," etc. This is a map 
of the whole Russian Empire in 1829, and in the left 
hand lower comer the boundary of the Russian Ameri- 
can lisiere is given as on map "No. 58." Charles Sum- 
ner used a copy of this general map of the Empire, 
"No. 60," in preparing his speech in support of the 
purchase of Alaska in 1867. 

The second map to which Mr. Foster refers in the 
above letter is "Map No. 63" in a copy of the Atlas 
of the Russian Empire (printed in Russian) published 
by the Russian War Office in the years 1830 to 1835, 
now in the possession of my brother, which belonged 
originally to Covint Dimitry Petrowitsch Severin, at 
one time Minister Plenipotentiary of the Emperor of 
Russia to the King of Bavaria. 

Reproductions of the two maps just referred to are 
given here. — Editor.] 



1 I * 




" Carte Generale * * * de la c6te N. \V. (sic) de l'Amerique," prepared 

AT Saint Petersburg in 1S29, bv Functionary Piadischeff 

"au Dep6t Topographique militaire." 



63 



■)90 



995 



930 



955 



94o 



9*5 



•95o 




' '■ i"ii" ^'^™ r'liiiiJ HI[|IHI,I liiiLil'ili ii .11 num. 



985 



q3o 



935 



94o 



945 



95o 



Map of Russian America published in the years 1830-1835 by the 
Russian War Office. 



86 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Philadelphia, April i, 1903. 

Dear Sir: — The two Atlases to which you refer in 
your letter of the 28th of March cost me much ex- 
pense and trouble; and I do not care to let them go 
out of my possession. The two maps, however, to 
which you refer, are reproduced correctly in my book, 
The Alaska Frontier, copies of which I sent to all 
the United States Senators, and to ex-Senator Turner. 

It is my intention when the Alaska frontier ques- 
tion is passed upon by the Joint Commission, to re- 
view the whole case. Believe me, 
Yours very truly, 

THOMAS WILLING BALCH. 

To the Hon. John W. Foster, 

Agent of the United States before the 
Alaska Boundary Commission. 



Department of State. 

Washington, April 2, 1903. 
Thomas Willing Balch, Esquire, 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 
Sir: — Your letter of the ist instant to Mr Foster, 
the Agent of the United States before the Alaskan 
Boimdary Tribunal, has been referred to me. 

I have to state in reply that the Department will 
be pleased to compensate you for any reasonable ex- 
penses incurred in securing the maps, and should they 
be sent they will be carefully preserved and returned 

to you. 

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 

JOHN HAY. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 87 

Philadelphia, April 8, 1903. 
The Hon. John Hay, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. 

Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge your note 
of April 3rd, in which you request me to send to 
Washington the Russian atlases in my possession. 

Last year I sent reprints of The Alaska -Canadian 
Frontier to all the members of the Fifty-seventh Con- 
gress, and this year I sent copies of The Alaska Fron- 
tier to all the United States Senators. I mention this 
to show you that my work on this subject was not 
done for the sake of pecuniary profit. I did this 
work, involving an expense of several thousand dol- 
lars and much traveling — all the way to Alaska and 
Saint Petersburg — because I realized that the Cana- 
dian claims were absurd, and that our retention of 
an imbroken lisi^re was of much future importance. 
And with no other personal interest in Alaska than 
that of being a good American, I decided to make it 
clear to any one who wished to know, how over- 
whelming are our rights to an unbroken lisi^re above 
fifty -four forty. 

Last November, I went to Washington for the pur- 
pose of collecting a few more facts on the subject, 
and tried to see you personally, but was unsuccessful. 
I did see Mr. Foster, but he was unable or unwilling 
to commimicate any information in answer to the 
questions which I submitted to him, and later when 
I wrote asking about a map of which he had spoken, 
he sent me back my own note, with a brief state- 
ment written across its face to the effect that he had 
made a mistake. I do not feel called upon, therefore, 
to put into his hands the evidence which I have 



88 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

collected, to be used by him without acknowledgment, 
as if obtained by himself. 

I have the honor, Sir, to remain, with great re- 
spect, 

Yours very truly, 

THOMAS WILLING BALCH. 



Princeton, April i8, 1903. 
Thomas Willing Batch, Esq. 

My Dear Sir: — I have lately received a book en- 
titled "The Alaska Frontier" for which I am indebted 
to you, as I suppose. 

Please accept my sincere thanks for writing the book 
and for putting it within my reach. It is certainly a 
very valuable contribution to the facts pertaining to a 
very interesting and important, and very much neglected 
subject. 

It was perfectly plain in Dec. 1885, when my first an- 
nual message went to Congress, that the Alaskan frontier 
could be easily settled then — and ought to be, on the 
principle that a "stitch in time saves nine." 
Yours very truly, 

GROVER CLEVELAND. 



Telegram: Received at Main Oflace, 1326 Chestnut Street, Phila- 
delphia. 

Washington, D. C. Apl. 6 — 03. 
Thomas Willing Balch, Philadelphia, Pa. 

Please send me by express for immediate official 
use three copies the Alaska Frontier 1903. 

ANDREW H. ALLEN, 

Chief Rolls and Library. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 89 

THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY." 

One of the most forcible, best presented and most 
abundantly supported presentations of the American 
side of the Alaska boundary question was in a mono- 
graph prepared by Thomas Willing Balch of the Phila- 
delphia bar, and published in 1902 vmder the title: 
"The Alasko-Canadian Frontier." The educational 
value of the little work cannot be overestimated. The 
data which Mr. Balch collated were conclusive to all un- 
prejudiced minds; his work was widely circulated, and 
from the time of its circulation there was a distinct 
change of tone in the newspapers of the East upon 
the question. For the first time they appreciated its 
importance; and for the first time they received a 
full idea of the flimsy ground upon which the Cana- 
dian contention rested, and of the absolute soundness 
of the American contention. 

Under the title, the "Alaska Frontier," Mr. Balch 
has recently published an enlargement of the original 
monograph, with a number of additional maps, and 
with further details of the original negotiations, pre- 
ceding the treaty of 1825, by which the boundary 
line between the Russian possessions and those of 
Great Britain was definitely determined. If there were 
a lingering doubt of the absolute soundness of the 
American contention, this second monograph should 
certainly dispel it. 

Among the maps showing the boundary line where 
this covmtry claims that it is are the following, all 
reprinted in Mr. Balch's book: British admiralty 

"Editorial from The Post-Inklligencer, Seattle, April 2, 1903. 



90 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

chart, published June i, 1877, under the superinten- 
dence of Capt. F. J. Evans, hydrographer, and cor- 
rected to August I, 1 901; a map published in 1802 
by the Russian government, showing the boundary 
line substantially according to the American conten- 
tion, valuable as showing the line for which Russia 
contended in the treaty of 1825; the imperial Rus- 
sian map, pubhshed in 1827, after the boundary treaty 
had been negotiated, showing the boundary exactly 
as it is now ; another military map, published in 
1829, under direction of the military topographical de- 
partment of the Russian army, with the same lines; 
a map of Russian America, published in 1830 by the 
Russian war office; a Canadian map of 1831, com- 
piled by Joseph Bouchette, Jr., deputy surveyor gen- 
eral of the province of Lower Canada; a map, pub- 
lished in France in 1844, by order of the king and 
under the auspices of the president of the council of 
ministers and of the minister of foreign affairs; a map 
in the "Narration of a Journey Around the World," 
by Sir George Simpson, chairman of the Hudson 
Bay Company, published in London in 1847; a map 
prepared by Capt. Tebenkofif, of the Imperial Rus- 
sian navy, 1849; rnap of the Hudson Bay Company, 
presented by Sir George Simpson to the committee of 
the house of commons, investigating the affairs of the 
company, and ordered printed by the house of com- 
mons on August II, 1857; John Arrowsmith's map 
of the provinces of British Columbia and Vancouver 
island, published in London in 1864; map published 
by the state department of the United States in 1867; 
the official Canadian map of British Columbia, pub- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 9I 

lished in 1884; a map published by the Canadian 
Pacific railway to accompany its annual report in 
1884. 

But these maps constitute but a small portion of 
the American case. From original documents, Mr. 
Balch has compiled the history of the negotiations 
preceding the settlement of the boundary by the treaty 
of 1825. These negotiations show three separate at- 
tempts made by the British negotiators to secure the 
consent of Russia to such a treaty as would give the 
British access to tide water through the strip along 
the coast north of 54 degrees 40 minutes, and the 
flat refusal of the Russian negotiators to make any 
such concessions. They first proposed a line up the 
middle of Chatham's straits and Lynn canal to its 
head; thence into the interior thirty miles; the second 
line proposed was through the canal which separates 
Prince of Wales island and Duke of York island from 
all of the islands situated to the northward until the 
line touched the mainland; then advancing in the same 
direction to the east for ten marine leagues; thence 
the line should ascend toward the north and north- 
west, at a distance of ten marine leagues from the 
shore, following the sinuosities of the coast up to the 
140th degree of longitude. The third proposed line 
was one passing up Duke of Clarence sound; then 
running from west to east along the strait separating 
Prince of Wales island and Duke of York island to 
the north; thence to the north and northwest in the 
way already proposed. 

Any one of these three propositions, advanced by 
Great Britain and all successively rejected, would still 



92 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

have left to Russia some of the territory which the 
Canadians now pretend to claim; but the Russians 
stood firmly by their proposition to have the bound- 
ary line follow Portland channel; and thence along 
the summit of the mountains parallel to the coast, 
absolutely excluding Great Britain from tide water 
north of 54 degrees 40 minutes; and the Russian con- 
tention was finally accepted. 

The work of Mr. Balch, which contains a very 
large amount of other data, of but little less impor- 
tance than these cited and all equally strong in sup- 
port of the American contention, is by far the fullest 
and best presentation of the American case which has 
ever been made, and will be of great value to the 
counsel who will appear for the United States before 
the boundary commission. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER." " 

Mr. Thomas Willing Balch, whose contributions to 
the literature of the Alaskan boundary question our 
readers will remember, has published, through Allen, 
Lane & Scott, Philadelphia, a thin but handsome 
volume entitled "The Alaska Frontier." The object of 
this monograph is to state clearly and briefly the 
facts which entitle the United States to their un- 
broken strip of coast line between Mt. St. Elias and 
Portland Canal in southeastern Alaska. The fluctu- 
ating and nebulous claims which Canada has made 
from time to time have never been supported by any 

"Review from Tlie Nation, April 2, and The Evening Post, April 

IS. 1903. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 93 

serious or tangible proof, and, perhaps for this very 
reason, have cultivated a Canadian public opinion 
which is not the less to be reckoned with because it 
has no sound foundation. It is on all accounts most 
desirable that a clear statement, divested of tech- 
nicality, should be available for those interested in 
the controversy and who have been led into a state 
of imcertainty by Canadian quibblers. Except for 
her desire to reach tidewater on her own territory, 
it is doubtful whether Canada would ever have taken 
up the speculative theories raised by private essayists. 
It should be understood that there are two questions 
involved in the dispute. The first is, whether the 
lisifere to which the United States is entitled by the 
treaty of 1825 is an unbroken strip, including all the 
marine coast line, or not. The second is as to the 
manner in which the boundary shall run if our rights 
to an unbroken lisifere are acknowledged. The first is 
the essential point; the second, relatively unimportant. 
It is important that the agents of the United States, 
in representing our case before the Commission, 
should avoid confusing them. The obvious Canadian 
policy is to mix them together, and to reckon on the 
main point being lost sight of in the mass of verbiage 
which may be brought to bear on the secondary 
■ question. 

Mr. Balch gives a clear and sufficient accoimt of 
the negotiations leading to the treaty, an official copy 
in French and English of the instrument itself, and a 
convincing argument from its provisions as to the 
continuity of the lisifere. To this is added a wealth 
of illustration by photographic reproduction of twenty- 



94 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

eight important maps, from the eariiest times to 1901, 
showing the uniform view taken on this point by 
officials and geographers of Russia, Great Britain, and 
Canada; thus estabhshing by prescription the rights 
near the southern boundary which have been called 
in question by critics, through some vagueness in 
the definition by the treaty of the line near Dixon 
Entrance. It is understood that an enormous mass 
of testimony has been gathered by the State De- 
partment bearing on the question of occupation and 
jurisdiction. This is precisely the sort of thing which 
leads to unending and inconclusive argument. If the 
main question is correctly decided, the rest follows 
in its train, for the most part without argument. In 
Mr. Balch's book, the main threads of evidence are 
woven into a conclusive whole, which should be in 
the hands of all interested, and the pubUcation of 
which is of general importance at the present time. 



THE FACTS IN THE ALASKA FRONTIER CASE." 

Early last year Mr. Thomas Willing Balch, an emi- 
nent member of the Philadelphia bar and of several 
historical and learned societies, read a paper on "The 
Alasko-Canadian Frontier" before the Franklin Insti- 
tute at Philadelphia which was afterwards printed in 
the Journal of the Institute and reproduced in a vol- 
ume with reproductions of eight maps. Mr. Balch 
showed conclusively that the frontier claimed and 
held by the United States is that defined by the 

" Article in The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio, April 5, 1903. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 95 

treaty between Russia and Great Britain in 1825 
and which was confirmed by the treaty between the 
United States and Russia in 1867, by which this gov- 
ernment acquired all the territorial rights of Russia in 
North America. Since the publication of that treatise 
Mr. Balch has pursued his investigations by the col- 
lection of material in all parts of the world having 
relation to the subject, including a number of maps, 
Canadian, British, French and Russian. The result is 
another volume, containing more than four times the 
matter of that of last year and with the eight maps 
of the earlier volume increased to twenty-eight. It is 
the case for the United States government presented 
with a clearness, fullness and logical argument that can- 
not fail to convince any unprejudiced mind. Every 
position taken is supported with citations from au- 
thentic docimients and the sequence of maps, most 
of them officially recognized by the Canadian, British 
or Russian governments where not expressly made 
by the order of one or other of those governments, 
makes the American position impregnable. On the 
title page of the new volume on "The Alaska Fron- 
tier" Mr. Balch prints the statement of the Russian 
negotiator of the treaty of 1825, Count Nesselrode, of 
the exact status of the two governments towards the 
■question during the negotiations: "Thus we wish to 
retain, and the English companies wish to acquire." 
That is the precise status of the United States and 
Canada at the present time. In a postscript to the 
volume, commenting on the agreement to leave the 
decision to a joint commission of six, Mr. Balch says: 
"The American commissioners, in making up their 



96 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Opinion must consider the acts of Canada and of Eng- 
land, the ofificial Canadian government maps and the 
British admiralty charts. Moreover, the new treaty 
provides that the French or official version of articles 
III., IV. and V. of the Anglo-Russian treaty of Feb. 
16-28, 1825, shall be used in deciding what arrange- 
ment the Muscovite and the British empires agreed 
upon in that instrument ; and, in the last part of ar- 
ticle IV., the phrase 'parallele aux sinuosit^s de la 
cote' is republished correctly. This phrase, especially, 
makes it incumbent upon the three commissioners not 
to yield to Canada an outlet to salt water anywhere 
above the Portland channel." 



BRITISH CLAIM PROVEN BY OLD ALASKAN DOCU- 
MENTS ENTIRELY GROUNDLESS." 

Thomas Willing Balch of Philadelphia, an eminent 
authority on international law, who published in 1902 
a paper on the Alaskan boundary question, entitled 
"La Fronti^re Alasko-Canadienne," in the Revue de 
Droit-International of Brussels, which attracted much 
attention in Europe at the time, and later published 
the same in English in the Journal of the Franklin 
Institute, has lately brought out (in January) a much 
larger monograph on the same momentous question, 
entitled "The Alaska Frontier." 

Balch is one of the best, if not the best, qualified 
men in the country to gather, arrange and present 
the historical evidence and physical facts pertinent to 

''Article from The Call, San Francisco, April 26, 1903, by A. L. 
McDonald, Esq. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 97 

the question at issue. His work shows great erudition, 
patient and exhaustive research and sharp refinement 
of logical reasoning, wherewithal he utterly demol- 
ishes any pretense of claim on the part of Great 
Britain to a single foot of territory beyond the bound- 
ary that has been recognized by her for over seventy- 
five years. 

The final and right settlement and demarcation of 
the Alasko-Canadian boundary question is a matter 
which should concern every good citizen of the 
United States, and Mr. Balch presents the matter in 
such a way that there need be no longer any lack 
of knowledge of the merits of the question and of 
our rights in the premises. 

To the people of the Pacific States especially, by 
reason of their closer and more direct relations, com- 
mercial and otherwise, with the region in question, 
the proper and prompt adjustment of this matter is 
one of large concern. 

Balch shows that it is only within the last few 
years that any "question" has ever been raised. Be- 
fore, every one, the British and American Govern- 
ments, official as well as private mapmakers, travel- 
ers to and residents of the country, school children 
and all, were used to consider the boundary laid 
down on the maps, according to the only reasonable 
and common-sense interpretation of the Anglo-Russian 
treaty of 1825, as the correct one. 

Lately, however. Great Britain, at the behest of 
Canada, has made claims that raise an issue of more 
importance than any with which we have had to deal 
since the Webster- Ashburton treaty of 1842 fixed the 



98 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

forty-ninth parallel of latitude as our northern bound- 
ary from the Lake of the Woods to the Straits of 
San Juan de Fuca— one that commands the most 
wary attention and careful offices of our Government. 
It was only in 1898, the year of the great rush to 
the Klondike, following the rich gold discoveries in 
that quarter in 1897, that any formal claim was made 
by the British Government that the boundary line as 
laid down by the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, and 
universally accepted and recognized ever since by the 
world and its own officials as well, was not the cor- 
rect one. 

It was at the Quebec conference in 1898 that her 
commissioners made the formal claim that the proper 
reading of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825 made 
great changes in the position of the boundary line 
and entitled Canada to the upper part of most if not 
all of the fiords or inlets of Southeastern Alaska, then 
as now claimed and occupied by the United States 
vmder treaty of purchase from Russia. 

Intimations had already been given that some such 
claim would be made at an informal conference be- 
tween Professor W. H. Dall of the United States 
Geological Sur\'ey and Dr. George M. Dawson of the 
Dominion Geological Survey in 1888, dtuing the ses- 
sion of the fisheries conference at Washington, and by 
General Cameron of Canada in 1884. Later the claim 
was advanced that the part of the third article of the 
treaty of 1825 which reads, "The said line shall as- 
cend to the north along the channel called Portland 
Channel as far as the point of the continent where it 
strikes the 56th degree of north latitude," did not 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 99 

mean that body of water which Vancouver had named 
Portland Channel, or canal, but several other stretches 
of water a long distance away known severally as 
Duke of Clarence Straits and Behms Channel, or canal, 
and Burroughs Bay; and that consequently the line 
should not be drawn eastward through Dixon entrance 
to the mouth of Portland canal and up that estuary, 
but should run north through Duke of Clarence Straits 
to Burroughs Bay, and thence across the mainland to 
intersect the 56th parallel of latitude, thus giving to 
Canada a large and valuable territory unquestionably 
belonging to the United States. 

In his latest work, "The Alaska Frontier," Balch deals 
with the whole question " ab initio ad finem." The 
archives of the courts of London and St. Petersburg, 
the great public as well as many private libraries of 
Europe, records of the Canadian Government as well 
as those of Washington and the far off posts of Alaska 
itself have all been called upon for testimony, and all 
pertinent recorded evidence as well as the substantial 
physical facts bearing thereon, as shown by map and 
picture, have been marshaled by him in such master- 
ful fashion and such plain and logical deductions made 
therefrom as fully justify Mr. Balch in his conclusion 
that "by no possibility has Canada any right to ter- 
ritory touching tidewater above fifty-four degrees forty 
minutes." 

In the summer of 1900 Balch, who is an expert 
and enthusiastic mountain climber, spent some time 
in Southeastern Alaska to make a personal inspection 
and exploration of a good part of the physical feat- 
ures of the "lisiSre" involved in Canada's claim. The 

L.ofC. 



lOO LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

summer of 1902 he spent in Europe gathering facts 
and evidence from the state records of St. Petersburg 
and London. 

Balch begins by showing the rights and claims of 
Russia and Great Britain in Northwest America prior 
to the ukase issued by the Czar in 182 1 claiming sov- 
ereignty over Bering Sea, and a large part of the 
North Pacific and also extending his territorial claims 
down to the fifty-first degree of latitude as claimed 
by the ukase of Emperor Paul in 1799. Then the 
history of the negotiations which followed between 
Great Britain and Russia and the treaty between those 
two powers of February 16-28, 1825, by which rights 
of navigation on the ocean were settled and the bound- 
ary between their respective territories was fixed. 

It is in the interpretation of this treaty that Can- 
ada finds the ground for her late-day claims. 

The United States in 1867 bought from Russia all 
her territory on this side of the Pacific, according to 
the limits set forth in that treaty of 1825, which was 
quoted "literatim et verbatim" in the treaty of ces- 
sion. Balch shows by numerous citations that neither 
from 1825 down to our purchase of the country in 
1867, nor till over twenty years after, did Canada or 
the British Government give any intimation of differ- 
ing with us in the universally accepted construction 
of that treaty — that on the contrary they officially 
confirmed it on many occasions. 

He shows by quotations from the letters of instruc- 
tions given by George Canning, then Minister [of Foreign 
Affairs], to the British representative at St. Petersburg 
(1823-25), and from the Russian archives, what were 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER, lOI 

the aims of the two powers and to what extent these 
were realized in the treaty achieved after over two 
years of negotiation. 

He gives the official treaty, which was in French, in 
full (with translation in parallel columns), and shows 
by liberal citations from contemporary authorities and 
dictionaries that the then accepted meaning of certain 
words and passages on which Canada relies for sup- 
port of her claim gives her no ground whatever to 
stand on in her present contention. 

He gives copies of a long list of maps, official and 
private, from Russian, British and French sources, in- 
cluding a British Admiralty chart published in 1877 
and corrected to 1898, and Canadian Government maps 
of 1 884 ; which all show the boimdary line as is now 
claimed by the United States. Not one authority gives 
the line as lately claimed by Canada. 

With all these maps and citations from the instruc- 
tions to, and proceedings of the British and Russian 
negotiators of the treaty of 1825, the author makes 
it perfectly clear and conclusive that the treaty was 
intended to and actually did cut the British off from 
tidewater above fifty-four-forty; that they so under- 
stood and accepted it officially and otherwise for the 
seventy odd years since, and are only now seeking to 
"arbitrate" the question in the hope that they will be 
awarded something. 

HoRNTON Lodge, Pitt Street, 
Kensington, London, 23 April, 1903. 
The Lord Chief Justice [Lord Alverstone] presents his 
compliments to Messrs. Allen, Lane & Scott and will 



I02 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

be glad if they will kindly send him a copy of Mr. 
Balch's book on the Alaska Frontier, for which he 
encloses Money Order for eight shillings and six pence. 
Kindly send it addressed to him at the above address. 



Imperial Embassy of Russia, 

Washington, D. C, May 28, 1903. 
Thomas Willing Balch, Esq. 

Sir: — His Majesty the Emperor directs me to con- 
vey to you His thanks for the copy of your book 
"the boundaries of Alaska" which has been presented 
to Him by Count Lamsdorff, Minister of Foreign Affairs 
of Russia. 

Acquitting myself with great pleasure of this agree- 
able duty, I remain, 

Sincerely yours, 

COUNT CASSINI, 

Ambassador of Russia. 

THE ALASKAN FRONTIER." 

In view of the prospective consideration of the 
Alaskan frontier dispute by commissions appointed by 
England and the United States, Mr. Thomas Willing 
Balch's monograph on the mooted question should 
prove extremely valuable to the American commis- 
sioners during their efforts to demonstrate the absurd- 
ity of England's claim. 

Mr. Balch, who is an honored member of the Phil- 
adelphia bar, prepared his monograph "with the ob- 

"* Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Express, July 
iSth, 1903. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. IO3 

ject of stating briefly but emphatically the title of 
the United States to a continuous, unbroken lisifere or 
strip of territory on the northwest American conti- 
nental shore between Mount St. Elias and fifty-four 
degrees forty minutes north latitude." 

In collecting the facts and evidence for his work 
Mr. Balch made journeys to Alaska, London, Edin- 
burgh, Berlin, St. Petersburg and other places. The 
author's researches have led him to conclude that the 
English side of the contention is as weak as it is 
baseless. Mr. Balch declares that the Canadians evi- 
dently hope that if they claim only enough and then 
can have their contentions passed upon by an Interna- 
tional Court, they will succeed in securing a port along 
the Lynn Canal. "If Canada obtains a deep water 
harbor there as she desires," concludes the author, 
"she can build and fortify a great naval arsenal, from 
which she would menace American commerce with 
Alaska, Siberia and Japan as it steams to and fro 
across the Northern Pacific." 

Mr. Balch clearly shows that the disputed boundary 
was established years ago by treaties in which both 
nations took part, and his readers will understand the 
importance of fighting Canada's preposterous claim 
when they learn that the idea of our neighbors across 
the border is to find an outlet to tidewater by means 
of a harbor on the Lynn Canal — an estuary which 
traverses Southern Alaska and which according to Mr. 
Frederick W. Seward, is "the thoroughfare by which 
all traders, miners and travelers reach the valley of 
the Yukon, unless they make a two thousand mile 
voyage around by the ocean." 



104 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

If England is honest in her protestations of friend- 
ship toward the United States, she will eventually 
cease championing the claims of the Canadians, claims 
which are made in the hope that the United States 
will offer something in order to escape a vexed ques- 
tion. Mr. Balch's patriotism, as manifested in his dis- 
interested and painstaking refutation of the claims of 
persons who hope to trespass on American territory, 
should receive the hearty commendation of his coun- 
trymen. 

ALASKAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE.'^ 

Secretary Root will leave for London Aug. 22 to 
serve as a member of the Alaskan boundary commis- 
sion, and as the time for the meeting of that body 
approaches a renewed interest will be felt in the 
question which it is to discuss. 

We say discuss rather than adjudicate because the 
commission is evenly divided, with three members 
representing the United States and three representing 
Great Britain and Canada, and both parties are very 
tenacious of their claims. The reluctance of either to 
yield was manifest at the Quebec conference of 1898, 
which ended in a disagreement, and the same dis- 
position has been shown since by officials who have 
been connected with the controversy, while the un- 
official advocates of the powers have been address- 
ing strong appeals to their covmtrymen against con- 
cessions. 

"'Editorial from The Record-Herald, Chicago, Illinois, August 13, 
1903. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. IO5 

One of the most elaborate of these appeals is the 
monograph on "The Alaska Frontier" by Thomas 
Willing Balch, a Philadelphia lawyer, who maintains 
that the American claims is so sound that "the 
pretense that the question of right should be sub- 
mitted to an international joint commission or to 
international arbitration is as unreasonable as would 
be such a demand for the settlement of the question 
of the ownership of one of the original thirteen 
states." Mr. Balch declares that there is only one 
question about which there can be an honest differ- 
ence of opinion, and that is "whether at certain 
points there is a natural water-shed formed by 
mountains passing inland roiind the sinuosities" of 
the coast. 

The monograph has been prepared after long and 
painstaking study and it brings out the various mat- 
ters in contention very clearly. There is first the 
question of the wording of the Anglo-Russian treaty 
of 1825. Mr. Balch can find but one rational inter- 
pretation for the provision that "the line of coast 
which is to belong to Russia shall be formed by a 
line parallel to the windings (sinuosities) of the coast, 
and which shall never exceed the distance of ten 
marine leagues therefrom." He holds that the "wind- 
ings" or the "sinuosities" of the trench include all 
such inlets of the sea as the Lynn Canal and other 
fiords above 54:40 north latitude, and backs his opin- 
ion with an etymological discussion of considerable 
length. The Canadian claim, to the contrary, rests 
upon certain interpretations of the French words "mer" 
and "ocean," and makes much of the question of 



I06 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

sovereignty over territorial waters. The point will be 
understood from a quotation froni Thomas Hodgins, 
a Canadian champion, who says: "Were the ten ma- 
rine leagues to be measured seaward from the coast 
they would be measured from the sea mouths and 
not from the upper shores of inlets or other terri- 
torial waters." Mr. Hodgins would have all inlets 
treated exactly like rivers. 

A second cause of altercation growing out of the 
wording of the treaty is that relating to the Port- 
land Channel. The treaty says that the line shall 
run from the southernmost point of Prince Edward's 
Island northward along the channel called Portland 
Channel to the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, 
that it shall then follow the summits of the moun- 
tains parallel to the coast to the 141st degree of west 
longitude, and that it shall continue north on this 
meridian line. Portland Channel is east of the south 
end of the island, and some of the Canadian ex- 
tremists insist that the start should be made north- 
ward up the Duke of Clarence Strait, while Sir 
Wilfrid Laurier declared in the Dominion parliament 
that though this was very hard to maintain the line 
should run west instead of east of Pearse Island. 
Mr. Balch holds that the name Portland Channel or 
canal is perfectly explicit and thoroughly established 
by geographical usage. 

A third argument which he puts forth is based 
upon the rights of occupancy and prescription. And 
to this the Canadians would probably oppose their 
plea that ever since the admission of British Colum- 
bia into the Dominion in 187 1 they have been pro- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. I07 

testing against American pretensions and seeking a 
settlement. Unquestionably, however, the fine series 
of maps which Mr. Balch publishes in his book tells 
heavily against them on all accounts. These maps 
would indicate that the map makers of many nations, 
including those of Great Britain and Canada, were 
committed to the American line. A Canadian map 
on exhibition at the Paris exposition is among the 
number, and so is a British admiralty map corrected 
to Aug. I, 1901. 

But whatever the evidence may be the Canadians 
have adopted a style of comment that is just as 
positive as that assumed by Mr. Balch. The negotia- 
tions will have to be conducted with great tact to 
prevent another disagreement of a serious nature. 



THE ALASKAN BOUNDARY." 

The assembling of the Alaskan Boundary Commis- 
sion in London on September 3 will revive interest in 
a controversy which has been slumbering since the 
modus Vivendi was agreed upon by Secretary Hay 
and Lord Pauncefote in 1900. The Commission is so 
constituted that it is highly improbable that it will 
settle the question. The United States is represented 
by three Commissioners, Canada by two and England 
by one. The Canadian and British Commissioners will 
probably support the Canadian claim throughout, and 
it is not believed that the Federal Commissioners will 
yield. The Commission is not an arbitration tribunal. 

*' Editorial from the Public Ledger, August 25, 1903. 



108 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

It is likely that nothing will be accomplished by it 
beyond a clear definition of the American and Cana- 
dian cases. 

Canada acquiesced for many years in the delimita- 
tion of the boundary set forth in the treaty of 1825 
between Russia and Great Britain, as interpreted by 
Russia, and later by the United States, which suc- 
ceeded to the Russian title to Alaska. While this 
tacit recognition of the American title may not be 
conclusive in international law against Canadian pre- 
tensions, to the lay mind it is persuasive evidence 
that the Canadian position is untenable. But the 
case of the United States rests upon firmer founda- 
tion than this. It rests securely upon the terms of 
the treaty of 1825, and upon the direct recognition 
by Canada of the right of the United States to ex- 
clude Canada from the shore to which she now claims 
access. 

By the treaty of 1825 Russia and Great Britain 
agreed that the boundary line between the possessions 
of the two countries upon the coast of the American 
Continent and the islands of America to the north- 
west should commence from the southernmost point 
of Prince of Wales Island and ascend to the north 
along Portland Channel as far as the point of the 
continent where it strikes the fifty-sixth degree of 
north latitude, and from this point the line should 
follow the summit of the mountains parallel to the 
coast. In Article IV of the treaty it is provided that 
wherever the summit of the mountains which extend 
parallel to the coast from the fifty-sixth degree of 
north latitude to the point of intersection of the 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. IO9 

141st degree of west longitude shall prove to be at 
the distance of more than ten marine leagues from 
the ocean, the limit between the British possessions 
and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia, 
as above mentioned, shall be "formed by a line par- 
allel to the windings (sinuosities) of the coast, and 
which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine 
leagues therefrom." 

Thomas Willing Balch, Esq., of Philadelphia, who 
has given careful and intelligent consideration to the 
Alaskan boundary question in his volume "The Alaska 
Frontier," holds that for more than fifty years Great 
Britain did not contest the interpretation, openly pro- 
claimed by Russia and the United States, that they 
were entitled to a strip of territory on the mainland 
from Portland Channel to Mt. Saint Elias, so as to 
cut off Canada from access to the sea above 54 de- 
grees and 40 minutes. In August, 1898, seventy- 
three years after the treaty of 1825 was signed, "for 
the first time the British Empire proclaimed at the 
Quebec Conference that the proper reading of the 
treaty entitled Canada to the upper part of most or 
all of the fiords between the Portland Channel and 
Mt. Saint Elias." 

It is not necessary to consult the maps to make 
clear the contention of the United States. The 
author just quoted covers the case in the statement 
that a review of the negotiations culminating in the 
treaty of 1825 shows plainly that its negotiators in- 
tended to save for Russia a strip on the mainland 
from Portland Channel northward to Mt. Saint EUas, 
and extending between these points far enough inland 



no LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

to exclude Canada "absolutely from access to the 
coast line above 54 degrees 40 minutes." 

The Canadian claim is that the treaty of 1825 has 
been misunderstood, and that instead of following the 
sinuosities of the coast the Alaskan boundary should be 
so drawn as to cross these sinuosities, giving Canada 
access to many bays and harbors. If any purpose 
stands out clearly in the treaty of 1825, it is the 
exclusion of Great Britain from these waters. The 
issue was not raised imtil the mineral wealth of Alaska 
was discovered. The British and Canadian maps, ex- 
cept those of very recent date, support the American 
contention. Numerous official acts of the British and 
Canadian Governments are cited to show the formal 
recognition of the American title to a continuous 
strip along the now disputed shore. The precise di- 
rection of the boundary at certain points may have 
to be determined, but that the boundary must in 
any event exclude Canada from the sea is plain. 
Russia intended to keep the shore in her exclusive 
possession to protect the fishing trade of her neigh- 
boring islands. Great Britain may have made an im- 
provident bargain, but this consideration does not 
affect our Alaskan title. 



NORTHWEST AND ALASKAN DISPUTE.'' 
[From our Special Correspondent.] 

White Pass, Alaska, Aug. 22, 1903. 
Within a few yards of the station at the summit 

" Letter of special correspondent in the Boston Herald, September 
7. 1903- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. Ill 

two flags are flying within five or six feet of each 
other. One is the British and the other is the Ameri- 
can flag. Between them is supposed to run an imagi- 
nary Hne bounding the territories of the two coun- 
tries. The Hne is as unstable as it is imaginary, for 
it was determined upon by the two governments to 
provide a modus vivendi while the controversy as to 
the true line was conducted in London. 

It was time, when the modus was adopted, that some- 
thing should be done. The revenue agents of the Do- 
minion of Canada had taken into their own hands the 
right of determining the extent of their own jurisdic- 
tion. They had moved from their unquestioned ter- 
ritory into American lands, and, as they moved, they 
had undertaken to exercise the disagreeable functions 
of their office. This had excited the wrath of the 
Americans, not only of those who dwell in Alaska, 
but of those who inhabit the state of Washington, 
and especially of that part of it which borders upon 
Puget sound. 

Angry passions had been aroused, and conflict was 
threatened, and when the Canadian revenue officers 
had actually taken up their quarters at Skagway the 
United States army felt called upon to intervene, the 
result being that the Canadians moved back to the 
crest of White Pass, where they remain, companions 
of the United States revenue officers, under Mr. Hay's 
modus vivendi. 

This boundary question is exciting on this coast; 
both the modus vivendi agreement and the commission 
which is about to meet in London are unpopular. One 
cannot speak of the Canadian claim to a United States 



112 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

inhabitant of Alaska, or to a Washingtonian, without 
receiving the answer: "If John Bull gets the territory 
that Canada claims he'll have to fight for it." 
■ This angry frame of mind had not been imparted 
to the Washington authorities when they made their 
agreement, nor was it patent to Congress when the 
commission was authorized. This is a "rough and 
ready" part of the country and has no faith in 
diplomacy. One hears on every side strong views as to 
the government's policy in agreeing to debate the 
question of relative rights. Mr. Olney is constantly 
quoted with approval as having said that there was 
nothing in this question to arbitrate. 

I am also told by a leading man of Seattle that 
the President promised him that he would never agree 
to arbitrate the question. He announced that if he had 
been in Polk's place he would have actually fought 
before he gave up 54 deg. 40 min., and here was a 
similar proposition. And yet here is the commission 
composed of men supposed to be committed in ad- 
vance to the Northwest's view. 

Strangely enough, the American integrity of one 
member of this commission is doubted by the fervid 
people of the Pacific coast, and that member is Mr. 
Lodge. It is a curious doubt, for any one who has 
followed Mr. Lodge's speeches on this subject must 
know that he is absolutely committed to the United 
States' contention. Indeed, to the unprejudiced mind 
the commissioners are not judges at all, but counsel. 

It is plain, however, that notwithstanding Mr. Roose- 
velt's popularity in general in the Northwest, he is 
suspected of wavering on the boundary question, and 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. II3 

that the expression of a suspicion of Mr. Lodge's firm- 
ness is but another way of expressing suspicion of 
the President. It is the opinion, or the feeling, here, 
that the English commissioners will not dare to agree 
with the American against the interests and the 
desires of the Dominion, and that imless one of the 
Americans shall yield, arbitration must be the conse- 
quence. 

"Are we not committed to arbitrate everything? 
Are we not the chief sponsor of The Hague tribimal?" 
asked a former officer and still a resident of Alaska. 
The question was not wholly intelligent, but it fully 
spoke the fears of the people here. The thoughtful 
men who dread the consequences, reasoning from this 
basis, say that when the British commissioners find that 
they cannot agree with the commissioners from this 
country, they will suggest an arbitration to a foreign 
power or to The Hague tribunal, and that our own 
precedents favoring arbitration will be used in urging 
us to an agreement. 

The late Venezuela incident will be especially 
potent. Strangely enough, the feeling is that an arbi- 
tration would result disastrously to this country. This 
feeling, however, is not due to any doubt as to the 
justice of our contention, but to the belief that a 
foreign power or that The Hague tribimal would be 
governed by a desire to grant to the Dominion a port 
on the coast north of 54 deg. 40 min., especially now 
that the British possessions in the Yukon territory 
have turned out to be valuable. 

It is safe to say that if such a result should fol- 
low the reference to the commission of this boundary 



1 14 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

dispute, it would be disastrous to the administration 
on the Pacific coast. The people grumble at the con- 
fession, implied by the appointment of the commission, 
that there is any subject open to discussion. Indeed a 
study of the question and an examination of maps and 
charts — British as well as Russian and American — 
must convince one that the people here are right. 

The whole subject has been thoroughly and ably 
discussed by Mr. Thomas Willing Balch of the Phila- 
delphia bar. People in this region, lawyers as well as 
laymen, think that Mr. Balch knows more about the 
subject than does any other man in the country, and 
express great surprise that he has not been employed 
as counsel for the United States. Perhaps he is aid- 
ing the government, but in Alaska it seems as though 
Mr. Foster and his son-in-law were the sole defenders 
of our claims before the tribunal. 

What is interesting is that the whole course of the 
government is watched with jealousy. Every step 
that it takes is questioned, and this because the 
people of the Capitol, the President and the Senate, 
have agreed to debate as to the relative rights of 
Great Britain and the United States to territory 
which people here believe to be our possession, and 
which was universally conceded to be so until 1898, 
five years ago. 

The firmness of this conviction is shown by the 
remark of a Seattle man who is interested in Alaska 
in a commercial way. "Why," he said, "William 
McKinley would never have agreed to arbitrate. 
William McKinley was an amiable man and did not 
love to scrap, either in action or by word of mouth. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. II5 

but he stood by his rights. If a Britisher, or any- 
body else, claimed his coat and demanded it of him, 
Mr. McKinley would have said : ' No, my dear sir, 
I paid for this coat and it is mine.' He would have 
tried to convince the wrongful claimant of his error, 
but he would have declined to arbitrate his rights to 
his own property, and, if the other had insisted, he 
would have told him that he could not have the coat 
unless he took it." 

This is the way in which the people of the dis- 
puted territory and those in its vicinity feel about 
the boundary question. They know that the territory 
belongs to the United States. They go back to 1825, 
when Russia and England negotiated the boundary 
treaty, and when the English government struggled 
to acquire a seaport for the western part of its 
dominion above 54 deg. 40 min. In that negotiation 
Count Nesselrode, speaking for Russia, insisted that 
ever since 1799 Great Britain had been deliberately 
excluded from the sea north of 54 deg. 40 min., and, 
in describing the contention of 1825, said: "Thus we 
wish to retain, and the English companies wish to 
acquire." 

There seems no ground for disputing our title but 
the one that the Yukon territory is valuable. Canada 
wants a port north of Port Simpson, which is of 54 
deg. 40 min. If the Canadians' claim were granted 
by way of compromise, we would be deprived of a 
port on the interior Alaskan waters. Skagway would 
then become British, and all that would pass between 
the United States and Alaska would have to pass 



Il6 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

through a British port, with a Canadian custom house. 
We would lose valuable lands and waters, and the 
friction on the border would be intensified. 

It is bad enough as it is. When a ship sails from 
Puget sound to Alaska, if it goes by interior waters 
to Juneau or Skagway or to some intermediate port 
in United States territory, it must pass through 
British waters. It must clear at Vancouver for 
British waters, and after crossing Dixon's entrance 
it must clear again at Ketchikan for American waters. 

If the Canadians were to have their way, there 
would be just as much delay en route, while we 
would land at a foreign port. Borders are especially 
harrassing up here, and press heavily upon the nerves 
of these unconventional people. They do not like the 
processes of custom houses. They complain of being 
"held up," and any one who goes from Skagway to 
Dawson has a large experience in a brief time of 
official "hold-ups" — one by the Dominion at the 
White pass, one by the United States at the same 
spot on the way back — and this in addition to the 
clearances along the water. 

Any change that may be made in the boundary 
line as it stands, and as it has stood for more than 
eighty years, will deprive the United States of valuable 
territory, of fruitful waters and of a convenient port 
the voyage to or from which is free from the perils 
of the sea. No annoyances will be done away with 
There will still be the frontier and its two custom 
houses. There will still be the cause of exasperation. 
The present ugly attitxide which one discovers here 
would be maintained and intensified. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. II7 

Already one hears muttering of the "foolish gift" 
which we made to England when we abandoned 54-40, 
and as one reads of the premature sending of war- 
ships to Turkey, one hopes, in the event of the grant 
to Canada of her claim, that the Northwest will not 
overexert its influence upon the President who could 
send that fleet. There is something better to do with 
these frontiers than to move them about at the ex- 
pense of the United States, and to do that would please 
the more sensible of the Canadians more than the port 
which the Dominion is seeking. This something is to do 
away with tariff barriers between the two countries, a 
suggested policy which commands more enthusiasm in 
Canada even than that of Mr. Chamberlain's conversion. 

HENRY LOOMIS NELSON. 



BALCH'S "ALASKA FRONTIER."" 

In this monograph Mr. Batch has given all the es- 
sentials for forming a judgment on the vexed ques- 
tion now at issue between the United States and 
Great Britain, and which forms the subject of the in- 
quiry referred on Jan. 24, 1903, to a commission of 
six jurists, three to be appointed by the United States 
and three by Great Britain and Canada. " The American 
Commissioners in making up their opinion," it is stated, 
"must consider the acts of Canada and of England, 
the official Canadian government maps, and the Brit- 
ish Admiralty charts." Moreover, the new treaty pro- 
vides that the French or official version of certain 

* The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, September, 1903, pages 35-37. 



Il8 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

Articles of the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825 shall be 
used in deciding what arrangement the Muscovite and 
the British empires agreed upon in that instrument; 
and in the last part of Article IV. the phrase ' paral- 
IHe aux sinuosites de la cote ' is republished correctly. 
"This phrase, especially, makes it incumbent upon 
the three American Commissioners not to yield to 
Canada an outlet to salt water anywhere above the 
Portland Channel." 

These concluding words of the postscript of this 
publication give the gist of the matter. The author 
has made careful and complete study of the whole 
history of the territory in question, from the early 
explorations to the claims in which "Russia, England, 
and the United States affirmed their sovereignty to 
greater and greater areas of land in the Northwest 
part of the American Continent." The differences be- 
tween the United States and Russia were adjusted in 
1824 by a convention which recognized the free navi- 
gation of the Northern Pacific Ocean, and fixed the 
latitude of 54° 40' north as the line that should 
divide the "spheres of influence" of the United States 
and Russia. All below that parallel Russia agreed 
to leave to the United States to contest with Great 
Britain, and all above it the United States consented 
to leave to Russia to dispute with England. When 
in 1825 the British and the Muscovite governments 
finally settled their conflicting territorial claim, the 
frontier between their respective possessions was drawn 
along the meridian of 141° west longitude to Mt. St. 
Elias, and then was to follow the crest of mountains 
running parallel to the coast, to the head of the Port- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. II9 

land Channel, and down that sinuosity to the ocean 
in 54° 40' of north latitude. But if at any point the 
crest of the mountains proved to be at a greater dis- 
tance than ten marine leagues from the shore, then 
the frontier should rtm parallel to the sinuosities of 
the coast at a distance of ten marine leagues inland, 
but never farther than that from the shore. For 
more than half a century it is proved that the Brit- 
ish Empire never contested the interpretation openly 
proclaimed by both the Muscovite and the United 
States governments; that, under Articles of this treaty, 
first Russia and later — after the cession of Russian 
America or Alaska in 1867 to the American Union — 
the United States were entitled to a strip of territory 
or lisi^re on the mainland from the Portland Channel 
or Canal in the south up to Mt. St. Elias in the north, 
so as to cut off absolutely the British possessions 
from access to the sea above the point of 54° 40'. 
It was not tmtil August, 1898, that, for the first time, 
the British Empire formally claimed at the Quebec 
Conference that the proper reading of these Articles en- 
titled Canada to the upper part of most or all of the 
fiords between the Portland Canal and Mt. St. Elias. 

A review of the long negotiations during the years 
1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825 between Cotint Nesselrode 
and the British Commissioners shows, as the author 
clearly traces, that the agreement finally reached was 
intended to exclude the British North American terri- 
tory from all access to the sea above the point of 
54° 40'. Coimt Nesselrode contrasted the policy of 
the two states in the pithy sentence :" Thus we wish 
to retain, and the English companies wish to acquire.*' 



I20 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

For England then sought to establish, as now again, 
a right to territory which she had passively recog- 
nized as Russian. So plainly does Mr. Balch see that 
the same situation confronts us in the present claims, 
that he aptly makes Nesselrode's sentence the motto 
of his title page. 

In following out the topics above mentioned the 
author introduces no less than 28 maps into his text 
of the utmost value, being of different dates, several 
of which, as used by the Russian office and also 
as used, allowed, or even prepared by the British 
Admiralty, would seem to estop the English from 
prosecuting their present claim. 

An accotmt of the purchase of Russian America in 
1867, named Alaska by W. H. Seward, naturally in- 
cludes the favorable relations existing between the 
United States and Russia. These undoubtedly pre- 
disposed our coimtry through Messrs. Seward and Sum- 
ner to look with complacency upon dealings with a 
country which was the one great nation that consist- 
ently from the beginning of the Civil War favored 
the Union cause. The diplomatic correspondence is 
introduced showing how Russia stood firm when other 
Powers seemed to be considering it only a matter of 
how and when to recognize the Southern Confederacy. 

Among the maps referred to by the author is No. 
60 (a) of the atlas entitled "Carte Gen6rale de 1' Em- 
pire de Russie," etc. This is a map of the whole 
Russian Empire in 1829, and (most significant this) 
in the left-hand lower comer the boundary of the 
Russian American Hsi^re is given as on map No. 58, 
which in Mr. Balch's work is marked No. 7. Charles 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 121 

Sumner used this general map of the Empire, No. 60, 
in preparing his speech in support of the purchase of 
Alaska in 1867. The copy that he had is now in the 
Harvard University Library. It is mentioned by our 
author that in the year 1866 the subject of leasing 
to an American Company the rights that Russia had 
formerly rented to the Hudson's Bay Co. was under 
consideration. The Russian government was opposed 
to any such minor arrangement. It wished to hand 
over to the United States for a fair consideration the 
whole of Russian America. The possession of distant 
American territory, lying across the seas, was an element 
of weakness to Russia, and the Empire was anxious to 
part with it to the United States, a friendly power. 

The research put into this monograph shows for 
itself. The author visited London, Alaska, Paris, St, 
Petersburg, with other places, to collect facts and 
evidence from first sources. Of the maps used sev- 
eral are unique copies, and are owned by him. To 
mention one conclusive fact among the many strong 
arguments adduced, I quote, "Why has no Canadian 
considered Chart No. 787 of the British Admiralty 
[of which a copy is given], which in 1901, three years 
after the Quebec Conference assembled, marks the 
frontier so as to give the United States a continuous 
unbroken Hsiere above 54° 40'?" There are in part 
incorporated in this work a paper, "La Frontiere 
Alasko-Canadienne," which was printed in the Revue 
de Droit International, and another which was pub- 
lished in the Journal of the Franklin Institute (Pa.), 
both by Mr. Balch. 

Mr. Balch says that he undertook this work (and 



122 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

it is published at his own sole expense) vnth the pur- 
pose of placing in a concise form before the American 
people the facts in the case. From these as presented 
he is of opinion that the pretense that the ques- 
tion of right shotald be submitted to a national joint 
commission or to an international arbitration is vin- 
reasonable. This was written last spring, and the 
work published last February, and just after this it 
was that in the same month what King Edward has 
called the "arbitral tribunal" was formed. The au- 
thor, however, remarks that as an even number of 
Americans and Britons or Canadians are to sit on the 
Commission, it can hardly be said that the subject is 
referred to an arbitration. 

In closing an inadequate notice of this highly impor- 
tant work too much credit cannot be awarded, as has 
already been done from high and most responsible 
authorities both at home and abroad, for this timely, 
exhaustive, and well-^vritten monograph. 

G. C. SAWYER, 'ss. 

[In addition to the foregoing articles. The Alaska 
Frontier was referred to with favor either in editorials 
or reviews in 1903 in The Journal of the Franklin In- 
stitute, Philadelphia, April; The Commercial Appeal, 
Memphis, Tennessee, April 6; The Outlook, New York, 
April 16; Daily Alaskan, Skagway, Alaska, April 16; 
The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, May 20; The Ad- 
vocate of Peace, Boston, Mass., April; The Tribune, Al- 
toona. Pa., August 14; Press-Knickerbocker and Albany 
Morning Express, September 3 ; The American Revieiv 
of Reviews, New York, Dr. Albert Shaw, Editor, Septem- 
ber; The Indepetident, New York, October 8. — Editor.] 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. I 23 

THE AMERICAN VICTORY.'" 

The Alaskan botindary dispute has been settled ex- 
actly in accord with the American contention and 
with the facts. In 1825 England tried her best to 
get seaports on the strip now in dispute, but Russia 
would not allow it, and in the Anglo-Russian treaty 
of that year fixing the boundary line between Alaska 
and the British possessions, England was kept from 
the sea. This treaty provided that the frontier line 
from the head of the Portland channel should be par- 
allel with the sinuosities of the coast, and should fol- 
low the chain of motmtains, but in case the moun- 
tains were more than thirty miles from the shore, 
then the line should run parallel to the windings of 
the coast, thirty miles inland. No honest man can 
misunderstand the language of this treaty. Accord- 
ing to its terms Russia retained a strip of coast land 
that was everywhere thirty miles wide, and England 
could not have a single seaport on that strip. This was 
thoroughly understood between England and Russia 
in 1825 and was embodied in the treaty in language 
that cannot be misunderstood. Yet Canada proposed 
to draw the boundary line from the head of the Port- 
land channel right over to the coast and thence along 
the coast, giving herself dozens of outlets to the sea. 
Such a claim was the very acme of nervy impudence, 
and it is no wonder that Lord Alverstone could not 
indorse so palpable a lie. As for Portland channel, 

'"Editorial from The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee, Oc- 
tober 19, 1903, written by the Editor, Walker Kennedy, Esq. 



124 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

according to the treaty of 1825, the line ascended 
that body of water; but as it is a bifurcated body, 
there could very well be a legitimate dispute as to 
which fork of it the line was to ascend. As we pur- 
chased Alaska from Russia we inherited her rights 
under the treaty of 1825. It seems but proper in 
this connection to recall the services of Thomas Will- 
ing Balch of the Philadelphia bar for the maintenance 
of American rights in Alaska. This gentleman has 
published two monographs on the subject containing 
a full history of the treaty of 1825 and the various 
maps which virtually without exception establish the 
American contention. On February 17, 1903, a dis- 
patch from Washington announced "an interesting 
discovery" made by President Roosevelt and Secre- 
tary Root in regard to the Alaska boundary. They 
were represented as consulting the large geographical 
globe that stands near the cabinet table. They "easily 
traced the boundary line between Alaska and the 
British possessions. To their surprise they found that 
the boundary as shown there sustains the contention 
of the United States in all particulars, although it 
was prepared under the direction of the British ad- 
miralty." If the President and Secretary Root were 
surprised that the British admiralty sustained the 
American claim they must be easily subject to sur- 
prise. Nobody else in the country who had studied 
the question shared that surprise. The fact that the 
British admiralty sustained our claim was discovered 
by Mr. Balch's brother. Mr. Balch bought a copy of 
the Admiralty map September i, 1901, and ever since 
then in a number of papers and reviews he has re- 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 1 25 

ferred to it, and the map has been reprinted several 
times. It appeared in Mr. Balch's first monograph 
published in 1902, a copy of which was sent to all 
the members of congress and presumably to members 
of the cabinet. As Mr. Balch presented the Ameri- 
can case in a way that was absolutely impregnable, 
and as he was the man to make the "interesting 
discovery" about the British admiralty admission, it 
is but fair that his part in this complete victory 
should be known. 



THE ALASKA ADJUDICATION." 

To the Editor of the Nation: 

Sir: — The Alaska award, as reported by cable, in 
the main supports the contentions of the United States. 
But still, in some of the less important points, the 
adjudication found is in favor of Canada. Consequently, 
the decision of the Adjudication Board — for the Joint 
Comimission as constituted was not a real Court of 
Arbitration — was a diplomatic compromise. 

The chief point of contention was whether Canada 
should obtain an outlet upon tidewater on the Lynn 
Canal in the northern part of the lisi^re or thirty- 
mile strip. The main question is now settled against 
her by the opinion of Lord Alverstone, the Lord Chief 
Justice of England, for the award of the Adjudication 
Board confirms the United States in the possession of 
an unbroken lisifere above the Portland Channel, which 
opens into the ocean at fifty-four forty, showing that 

" The Nation, New York, November 12, and the Evening Post, 
November 13, 1903. 



126 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

the Lord Chief Justice was convinced by the over- 
whelming force of the evidence in favor of the United 
States. 

Canada, considering that her pretensions were not 
based on sound facts, made very favorable gains by 
the Adjudication award. At one or two points, as on 
the Stikine River, for instance, the eastern frontier 
of the lisiere is brought probably a little too near the 
sea water, all of which redounds to the advantage of 
Canada. At the mouth of Portland Channel, at the 
south end of the lisiere, Canada obtains Pearse and 
Wales Islands. At first sight the possession of these 
islands seems of small importance. But their geo- 
graphical position, immediately opposite the Canadian 
harbor of Port Simpson, gives them, in spite of the 
retention by the United States of the two small out- 
ward islands of Kannaghunut and Sitklan, an impor- 
tant strategic value. Port Simpson is destined to be 
the western terminus of the new Canadian Transcon- 
tinental Railroad. Canada, with Pearse and Wales Is- 
lands in her possession, will control the Portland Chan- 
nel, and can build at Port Simpson another naval 
stronghold like HaHfax on the Atlantic and Esqui- 
mault on the Pacific, and from it menace our devel- 
oping trade across the Pacific Ocean with Alaska and 
Asia. 

The management of the Alaska boundary conten- 
tion, its submission to the Adjudication Board, and 
the resulting award cannot be called a real triumph 
for the cause of international arbitration. But, now 
that this dangerous frontier question is in a large 
measure out of the way, it is to be hoped sincerely 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 1 27 

that efforts will be made by both the United States 
and the Canadian Governments to bring about a com- 
mercial rapprochement between the two nations. And 
the sooner negotiations are carried on directly between 
Washington and Ottawa instead of by the roundabout 
and cumbersome way of Downing Street, the better 
— as Monsieur Henri Bourassa, a grandson of Papineau, 
pointed out in a notable speech on October 23 in the 
Dominion Parliaments^ — for the maintenance of cordial 
relations between the United States and Canada. We 
Americans — and by Americans are meant all those 
who live in the New World, from the Arctic to the 
Antarctic — should try to live as far as possible on 
friendly terms with one another, and let the nations 
of the Old World fight among themselves if they wish, 
while we sell them the implements of war, whether 
of food, or garments, or weapons. Estimated in dol- 
lars and cents, such a policy will pay much better 
than for Canada to help fight the wars of Great Brit- 
ain in the Old World, or for the United States to try 
to draw the chestnuts out of the fire in the Orient 
for the benefit of European nations. Certainly, up to 
now, the Philippines have not been a paying invest- 
ment for us; and to urge this country to invest in 

"House oj Commons Debates, Third Session — Ninth Parliament, 
Vol. XXXVI., October 23, 1903. 

Compare also: Henri Bourassa, M. P., Grande-Bretagne et Canada — 
Questions Actiielles; Conference an Theatre National Franfais, Montreal, 
Le 20 Octobre, tgoi: Montreal, Imprimerie du Pionnier, 33-35 rue 
St. Gabriel. 

See also The French-Canadian in the British Empire by Henri 
Bourassa, member of the Canadian Parliament : Reprinted from the 
Monthly Review, September and October, 1902; London, John Mur- 
ray, Albemarle Street, 1902; pages 27-28. 



128 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

transoceanic wars in the name of commercial advan- 
tage is very much Hke advising individuals to place 
their money in one of the ntmierous South Sea Bub- 
bles that are floating around in the industrial market. 

T. W. BALCH. 
Philadelphia, November 7, 1903. 



L'AD JUDICATION DE LA QUESTION DE LA FRONTlfeRE 
ENTRE L'ALASKA ET LE CANADA^* 

PAR 

THOMAS WILLING BALCH, 

A. B. (Harvard). 
Mbmbrb dv Barrbau db Philadblpbib. 



Le 24 Janvier 1903, fut conclue a Washington une 
convention qui r6f6rait la question de la fronti^re 
orientale de la Hsi^re de I'Alaska k im tribvmal com- 
post de six jurisconsultes de distinction; trois devaient 
6tre nomm6s par le president des Etats-Unis et trois 
par le roi d'Angleterre. La convention fut sign^e par 
le ministre des affaires 6trang^res am6ricain (Secretary 
of State), M. John Hay, pour les Etats-Unis, et par 
I'ambassadeur anglais, sir Michael Herbert, pour la 
Grande-Bretagne ; elle fut ratifi^e par le S6nat des Etats- 
Unis, le II fevrier 1903, et elle devint alors un trait6. 

Le tribvmal 6tait un tribtmal d' adjudication et non 
pas un tribunal d'arbitrage international. En effet, il 

" Reprinted by the cotirtesy of the Revue de Droit International et de 
Legislation Comparie of Brussels, 1904, Deiucidme S^rie, volume VI., 
pages 38-40. 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. I 29 

etait compost d'un nombre pair de jurisconsultes : trois 
de chaque c6t6, qui 6taient choisis par les deux parties 
parmi leurs concitoyens. 

La mission du tribunal d'adjudication 6tait de foumir 
I'explication correcte d'une partie du traite anglo-russe 
qui fut sign6 k Saint-Petersbourg, le 16/28 f^vrier 1825, 
par le comte Nesselrode, M. de Poletica et sir Stratford 
Canning. Par ce traits, la Russie et I'Angleterre con- 
venaient d'une ligne de d6marcation en tie leurs terri- 
toires de I'Amerique du Nord. La ligne partait de la 
mer Glaciale, suivait le m^ridien du 141® degr6 de 
longitude Quest de Greenwich jusqu'au mont Saint- 
filie; elle devait suivre la crSte des montagnes situ6es 
parallfelement k la c6te jusqu'k la tfite du Portland 
Channel, et puis descendre cette sinuosity jusqu'k 
roc6an, au point le plus meridional de I'ile dite Prince 
of Wales sous le parall^le de 54° 40' de latitude Nord. 
II 6tait dit que partout ou la crete des montagnes se 
trouverait k la distance de plus de dix lieues marines 
de I'oc^an, la frontifere serait form6e par une ligne 
parall^le aux sinuosites de la c6te, et qui ne pourrait 
jamais en 6tre 61oign6e que de dix lieues marines. 

Les Etats-Unis affirmaient que ceci donnait k la 
Russie et en consequence k eux-m§mes — puisque, en 
1867, ils avaient achet^ I'Amerique russe avec tous les 
droits de la Russie^ — une lisi^re continue de territoire 
sur le continent, du mont Saint-Elie jusqu'au Portland 
Channel, d'une largeur suffisante pour couper enti^re- 
ment I'empire britannique de tout accfes k la laisse de 
la mar^e haute au nord de 54° 40'. Le Canada, au 

3< Concerning the piirchase of Alaska, see The Alaska Frontier, pages 
58-73, passim, especially the letter of Mr. Frederick W. Seward. 



I30 LETTERS AND PAPERS RELATING TO 

contraire, soutenait que I'exacte interpretation du traite 
de 1825 lui attribuait une ligne de demarcation qui 
passait a travers les sinuosites telles que le Lynn Canal 
au lieu de passer k I'interieur, lui donnant ainsi des 
ports aux sommets de ces sinuosites. 

Le decision du Tribunal donne raison, presque en 
totalite, aux Etats-Unis. Toutefois, pour certains details 
de moindre importance, I'adjucation est en faveur du 
Canada. La question principale etait de savoir si le 
Canada devait avoir vm debouche sur la laisse de la 
maree haute au Lynn Canal ou a toute autre des sinu- 
osites ou fiords qui s'avancent dans la lisiere. Cette 
question essentielle est maintenant decidee contre 
le Canada par le jugement impartial de Lord Alver- 
stone, lord chief justice d'Angleterre, qui vota dans le 
meme sens que les trois membres americains du tri- 
bunal, ce qui, par un vote de quatre contre deux, assura 
atix Etats-Unis la possession d'une lisiere continue de 
territoire au nord du Portland Channel. Lord Alver- 
stone prouva par son vote qu'il avait ete convaincu de 
la justice des droits des Etats-Unis, grace a la masse 
de preuves et a la force accablante des faits. 

Quand on se rappelle que les pretentions du Canada 
n'avaient pas de bases solides, on peut dire que celui-ci 
a gagne beaucoup par la decision du tribtmal d'adjudi- 
cation qui, a vrai dire, fut un compromis diplomatique. 
A un ou deux endroits, comme par exemple a la riviere 
Stikine, la frontiere orientale de la lisiere est rapprochee 
probablement trop pres de la mer, au grand avantage 
du Canada. Rejetant les preuves foumies par les 
cartes gouvemementales anglaises et canadiennes, et la 
regie du thalweg, le tribunal d'adjudication a attribue 



THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 13I 

au Canada, de I'assentiment des trois membres ameri- 
cains, les iles de Pearse et de Wales, situees k I'embou- 
chure du Portland Channel. A premiere vue, la pos- 
session de ces iles parait etre de peu d'importance ; 
mais leur position geographique, juste en face du port 
canadien de Port-Simpson, leur donne, bien que les 
Etats-Unis conservent les deux petites iles exterieures 
de Kannaghunut et Sitklan, une haute valeur strat6- 
gique. Car Port-Simpson est destine a devenir le ter- 
minus occidental du nouveau chemin de fer transconti- 
nental canadien. Le Canada, avec les ties de Pearse 
et de Wales en son pouvoir, controlera Portland Chan- 
nel et pourra construire k Port-Simpson une autre place 
forte navale, telles que Halifax sur I'ocean Atlantique, 
et Esquimault, sur I'ocean Pacifique, et de Ik, il pourra 
menacer sur I'ocean Pacifique le commerce des Etats- 
Unis avec I'Alaska et I'Asie. 

Les divers pourparlers qui amenerent les gouveme- 
ments de Washington, de Londres et d 'Ottawa k sou- 
mettre la dehneation de la frontiere de I'Alaska k un 
tribunal d'adjudication et la decision qui s'ensuivit 
ne peuvent pas etre comptes, nous le repetons, parmi 
les vrais triomphes de I'arbitrage international. Mais, 
maintenant que cette question brulante de la frontiere 
est pour ainsi dire definitivement terminee, il faut es- 
perer bien sincerement que les gouvemements des Etats- 
Unis et du Canada s'efforceront d'amener un rapproche- 
ment commercial — toujours un solide gage de paix — 
entre les deux nations. Et, comme M. Henri Bourassa, 
le petit-fils de Papineau, le leader des Canadiens 
frangais en 1837, I'a d^montre dans un discours me- 
morable prononce, le 23 octobre dernier, devant le Parle- 



132 THE ALASKA FRONTIER. 

ment de la pmssance du Canada, au plus tot que les 
n6gociations seront conduites directement entre Was- 
hington et Ottawa au lieu de I'^tre par le chemin de tra- 
verse de Downing Street, mieux vaudra pour le main- 
tien d'une entente cordiale entre les Etats-Unis et le 
Canada. 



INDEX. 



PAOB. 

Letter of Mr. T. W. Balch, The Nation, New York, January 2 , 1 902 , i 
Letter of Mr. R. W. Shannon, The Nation, New York, January 16, 

1902 3 

Letter of Mr. A. Johnston, The Nation, New York, January 23, 

1902 6 

Letter of Mr. W. H. Dall, The Nation, New York, January 30, 1902, 10 
Letter of Mr. T. W. Balch, The Nation, New York, February 6, 

1902 13 

Letter of ex-Secretary of State J. W. Foster, March 17, 1902.... 18 

Letter of the Hon. F. W. HoUs, March 19, 1902 18 

Letter of Mr. H. W. Elliott, r^^ Star, Washington, March 26, 1902, 19 

Editorial from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, April 4, 1902 .... 24 

Letter of the Hon. F. W. HoUs, April 4, 1902 27 

Editorial from The Star, Toronto, April 10, 1902 28 

Editorial from The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, April 13, 1902, 29 
Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Morning Ex- 
press, Albany, April 16, 1902 34 

Editorial from The Chronicle, Chicago, April 21, 1902 39 

Editorial from The Post Intelligencer, Seattle, April 22, 1902 41 

Editorial from The Helena Independent, Helena, April 22, 1902. . 44 
Letter of Mr. P. Rogestvensky, Secretary Russian Embassy, 

February, 1901 49 

Letter of Count Cassini, March 1 1-24, 1902 49 

Letter of Count Cassini, May 1-14, 1902 50 

Article from The Times, Philadelphia, June 30, 1902 50 

Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Morning 

Express, Albany, July 5, 1902 51 

Article from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, July 12, 1902 52 

Speech of the Hon. Charles F. Cochran, January 20, 1903 54 

Review in The Press, Philadelphia, February 22, 1903 66 

Editorial from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, March 16, 1903. . 75 

Letter of the Hon. F. W. HoUs, March 25, 1903 77 

Editorial from the Evening Journal, Albany, March 28, 1903. ... 79 

Letter of ex-Secretary of State J. W. Foster, March 28, 1903.. 82 

(133) 



134 INDEX. 

PAGB. 

" Carte G6n6rale * * * delac6te N. W. (5«c) del'Am6rique," 

1829 84 

Map of Russian America, 1830-1835 85 

Letter of Mr. T. W. Balch, April i, 1903 86 

Letter of Secretary of State John Hay, Washington, April 2, 

1 903 86 

Letter of Mr. T. W. Balch, April 8, 1903 87 

Letter of ex-President Cleveland, Princeton, April 18, 1903 88 

Telegram of the Hon. A. H. Allen, Washington, April 6, 1903. . . 88 

Editorial from The Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, April 2, 1903 89 

Review from The Nation, New York, April 2, and The Evening 

Post, April IS, 1903 92 

Article from The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, April 5, 1903 94 

Article from The Call, San Francisco, April 26, 1903 96 

Letter of the Lord Chief Justice of England, London, April 23, 

1903 10 1 

Letter of Count Cassini, Washington, May 28, 1903 102 

Editorial from the Press-Knickerbocker and Albany Express, 

Albany, July 15, 1903 102 

Editorial from The Record-Herald, Chicago, August 13, 1903. . . . 104 

Editorial from the Public Ledger, August 25, 1903 107 

Letter of Mr. H. L. Nelson in the Herald, Boston, September 7, 

1903 "° 

Review in The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, September, 1903. . 117 

Editorial from The Commercial Appeal,yi.em-ph.{s,Oc^.oheT 19, 1903, 123 
Letter of Mr. T. W. Balch, The Nation, New York, November 12, 

1903 '^5 

Article in La Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Com- 
paree, Brussels, 1904 128 



. j.^-t 



